


Something Blue

by stepantrofimovic



Series: True colors [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (on both sides), Author's not nice to Clint Barton, Author's not nice to Phil Coulson either, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Kind of a fix-it, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Mutual Pining, Phil Coulson Needs a Hug, Safeword system (sort of) in a nonsexual context, Slow Build, Spoilers for MAoS Season 1, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 32,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepantrofimovic/pseuds/stepantrofimovic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After they start working together, it doesn't take long for Clint Barton to notice that there's something different about Agent Coulson. Problem is, this is triggering a few unpleasant associations in Clint's mind, and the two of them must find a way to get around that. Things progress from here. Basically, a story about building trust, and something more in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Undercover

**Author's Note:**

> So, you know how it works. Author gets plot bunny. Author tries to ignore Bunny. Bunny is persistent. Author decides to "give it a shot". 24 000 words (and counting) later, Author sighs and thinks they should probably let Bunny out in the open. This is the result.
> 
> This whole fic was born as a result of my idle speculations about the connotations of the color blue in the Marvel Universe -- it's the dominant color for everything SHIELD-related, but it's also the color of the Tesseract, of Loki's spear, of the alien in the Guest House, etc. I'm also apparently unable to get past the fact that I've reached the end of Season 1 of AoS and Coulson still hasn't bothered to let the rest of the Avengers know he's alive. The story will cover events from Clint's first years at SHIELD to the end of AoS Season 1.

Clint Barton has been working with SHIELD for almost a decade now, and still people, even other agents, tend to forget that the Black Widow is not the only assassin and spy – emphasis on the latter – in Coulson’s team. Barton’s been trained as one, too, and he’s almost as good at this part of his job as he is as a sniper. Sure, one might point out that the circus, Barney and a few years in the world’s biggest secret agency can’t compare to being raised and conditioned by the Red Room as a child – and Clint would agree, as any sane person would. Besides, unlike most sane people, he’s seen what Tasha can do to others and, unlike most of the other SHIELD agents, he knows what she can do to herself as well. As fucked up as his childhood may have been, no, he can’t compare.

So Clint’s mind works differently from Natasha’s, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t do undercover work or that he’s only good at killing targets from a distance. (Not to mention that killing people is only a small part of what he does, and he’d very much prefer to keep it that way.) This talent of his, however, is apparently so well hidden that Coulson has been the first of many handlers to take full advantage of his abilities in the field of espionage, long before Natasha was taken in. That’s one of the reasons why they start working together most of the time – apparently, Coulson said something about Barton’s talents being “underappreciated”, and Fury agreed. Underappreciated, Clint comes to know, is Coulsonspeak for “wasted”, and his new handler hates when good things go to waste, even if no one else notices they’re good things, or so he says – he’s a collector, after all. Clint tries _not_ to think about how this whole line of reasoning bothers him.

So they become a thing. Coulson regularly turns to him for the ops that require strategical thinking as well as espionage skills, and some part of Clint is entirely too pleased that his handler recognizes that he can do that part, too. He tries not to think about it too often, or he’ll probably swell with pride so much that his chest ends up exploding. He tells himself that it’s just because he was getting bored of being seen as more of a hitman than a real agent, that it reminded him too much of what he was before SHIELD brought him in – that it has nothing to do with how Coulson looks at Clint and smiles that gentle smile of his every time he debriefs him after an op has gone well, his eyes crinkling at the corners and radiating genuine appreciation. After all, the people whose approval he’s craved in the past haven’t had many qualms about taking advantage of the situation, and Clint’s had a taste too many of the kind of things that happen when you value someone’s opinion above your own safety to get caught up in that again – to believe his worth lies in the praise bestowed by someone else. It doesn’t matter how different things seem to be now from his days in the circus.

Problem is, Coulson _is_ different. He’s not Barney, he’s not the people at the circus, he’s not Trickshot – he doesn’t imply that Clint is worthless when he isn’t been praised by him. He doesn’t actually imply anything. He just points out what Clint did wrong and where he made the right call. He does the same about himself. He’s as severe in criticizing his own choices in the field as he is with Clint and everyone else’s, and his reproach is as hard as his praise is, well, sincere. It takes many months and a lot of debriefing sessions for the knowledge to really sink in, but when it does (after a particularly difficult mission in Taipei, where they’ve just about started a third World War, and it’s obvious that Coulson is furious with himself and everybody else, but he still manages not to say anything unfair and to bestow praise where it’s deserved), Clint feels like the very ground he used to stand on is being shaken. Coulson isn’t trying to manipulate anybody. That’s just how he works. How he _is_. The archer has to excuse himself from the room for a moment. He goes to the lavatory, leans his forehead against a mirror and thinks, _this is for real_. Coulson is a good man. He’s _trustworthy_. At least, as good and trustworthy a man can be when he works for the world’s most powerful secret organization. It’s enough for Clint. It’s more than enough. It makes his knees go weak, and when he goes back to the debriefing room he notices for the first time that his stomach flips every time he looks at his handler. His face, however, shows nothing but the appropriate reaction to what Coulson’s saying. After all, Clint’s good at undercover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the first two chapters are a bit short -- next ones will be longer, I promise. We'll also get around to the color blue soon. I have written everything up to the second-to-last chapter, but I'll be revising single chapters as I post them, so this might take some time. I'll still try to post semi-regularly -- I'm thinking three times a week, probably on Monday, Wednesday and Friday/Saturday. I'll update the tags and character list as I go, and the rating may go up.
> 
> As always, comments and criticism are very welcome. Before commenting, however, I'm asking you to remember that I haven't seen a single episode of Season 2 yet, so please, please avoid any spoilers. Thank you!


	2. Target

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little warning about this chapter: there will be a flashback, with reference to child abuse. Nothing graphic, but the language might be triggering.

Three weeks after Taipei, the two of them get sent on an op in Italy. It’s undercover again, but this time it’s not Clint but Coulson that has to go as someone else. He’s to play the middle man in one last exchange that will close the ring SHIELD’s been weaving around a world-wide human trafficking organization for years. It’s pretty straightforward, if you don’t stop and think about the number of agents who’ve worked on the op to lead things up to this point. At least one of them died – there may have been more, but Clint doesn’t know. Anyway, Fury makes it abundantly clear that everything has to go as smoothly as humanly possible, and better. No mistakes allowed. Clint won’t make any, even if his stomach still does that annoying somersault thing when he remembers that his determination has more to do with the slight downward tilt of Coulson’s lips as they spoke with the Director than with any greater good. It doesn’t matter. He’ll get the job done. He always does.

Clint is perched on a container in Genoa’s huge port as Coulson meets their target. He’s not supposed to do anything unless his handler’s cover is broken, which is unlikely to happen, but Fury insisted that Coulson had backup, just in case. (It’s obvious, sometimes, how highly he values the man’s life. It would be unsettling to see the Director care so much about an agent, if it weren’t one of the few points where he and Clint are on the same page.) Coulson reaches the agreed meeting point – not a perfect shot from Clint’s nest, and he’ll have a few choice words about it with the agent who did the recon as soon as they get out, but for now he’ll make do if anything happens – and leans casually against a concrete wall, making himself somewhat comfortable for the wait. He looks almost relaxed – professional as always.

When the archer signals that their contact is approaching, Coulson does something Clint has never seen him do before. He just – _unfurls_ into someone else. There is no trace of kindness on his face as he speaks with the brawny Italian man, nothing in his posture and eyes that doesn’t say _hard, cunning, deadly._ _Manipulative._ Clint looks at him, can’t do anything but look at him, and suddenly hates that his sharp eyes force him to see everything. Coulson’s mask is perfect – it’s in the way he holds himself, the set of his jaw, the complete absence of tension in his hands and neck – everything is so perfect that there’s no way this is a mask at all. This is something different. Coulson isn’t manipulating the target, he’s just allowing himself to show his true colors for a while. He doesn’t seem to care that one of his agents is watching as what he really is becomes visible.

Clint feels like his ribcage is closing around his lungs. He scrambles desperately against the thoughts that are clouding his head, fights for breath against memories of his father’s voice as he croons, _my precious little baby, you’ll be still, won’t you,_ _why don’t you do as I say,_ _you little bastard_ , as he throws a kitchen stool at his mother and shouts that _they’re all worthless, the three of them_ – images of Barney telling him in excruciating detail how he hates that he has to protect his little brother even though Clint is a _useless brat_ and _can’t even survive on his own_ – Trickshot leaving him with a cracked rib for every target he’s missed in practice, telling him _it’s for his own good_ , he has to learn, to be _perfect_ , because he won’t allow _his boy_ to be a _failure_ , and – Clint’s fingers tremble on the bow’s handle, his grip is slipping, but his vision doesn’t falter, it just zeroes in on Coulson. Who isn’t the man he’s supposed to be. Who’s been manipulating Clint into thinking he can be trusted. Who will _hurt_ Clint like the others did and will hurt him _worse_ than everyone else because –

The target pulls out a gun and points it to Coulson’s chest. The agent’s mask doesn’t slip. He knows that he has the best backup he can hope for. But Clint’s hands are the opposite of steady and his reaction comes half a second ( _an eternity_ ) too late, so when the arrow pierces the Italian’s head he’s already pulled the trigger and Coulson’s body is dropping to the ground. And then Clint is jumping down from the container and probably spraining his right ankle in the process but the pain doesn’t register so he takes off running anyway and shouts into the comm for help and a med team, and his world has suddenly narrowed to _Coulson who’s bleeding and that’s a good sign because he wouldn’t bleed_ _so much_ _if he was dead so he’s alive but he barely has a pulse and his breath is bubbling in his chest which means a lung’s been pierced_ _and he will die_ _and it_ _‘_ _ll be_ _Clint’s fault if his handler dies and he won’t allow it, no, no Phil please Phil don’t die please_ _I’m begging you_ _Phil_ _don’t die_ _please_ _._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, well, I enjoy hurting Coulson a bit too much. Also, hello cliffhanger! The next chapter will be longer and will finally contain some dialogue. Also, we get around to introducing the whole issue with blue.


	3. A strategy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally getting these two to talk. I may have had a bit too much fun with them, judging from the length of this chapter, but then, I don't really regret it. Also, Clint's acting like a moody teenager in this scene -- you've been warned.

Coulson stays in the hospital for five weeks, the first of which is spent in an induced coma. Clint is not allowed to see him – not that he’d have the time anyway, since he’s going through the worst series of debriefing and full-on interrogation sessions he’s ever been subjected to. He deserves it. He deserves every insult Fury throws at him when it becomes clear that he’s no double agent and it was just his incompetence that put Coulson on the brink of death. He deserves the sleepless nights and the nightmares about the circus and being left to bleed to death in an alley because he _wasn’t good enough_. But he can’t forget that Coulson’s face looked cruel and all sorts of _wrong_ for five minutes out there in Genoa and how it turned soft and _kind_ again as he lay unconscious on the asphalt. He doesn’t know which version he should believe, and it’s killing him that he has nightmares about this and not the fact that Coulson almost died and it was his fault. It’s not the first time in his life that Clint fears he’s going insane – that he’ll let his fears and doubts cloud his judgment so much that he’ll turn into someone he can’t recognize –, but he thinks he’s never been so close. (He will remember this years later, when Phil bleeding to death because of what he did is no longer just a nightmare, and laugh until there’s tears in his eyes that refuse to be spilled. Then he’ll know for sure he’s going insane.)

When Coulson is released, he comes straight to talk to his asset. Well, Clint supposes that he’s at least gone home to change clothes, since he can’t believe that the agent has somehow woken up in the hospital with a freshly pressed suit on. Clint tries to hold on to this thought, superficial and silly as it may be, as Coulson approaches, but it’s too thin a lifeline against the fear that’s pooling up in his stomach (no backflips this time, that ought to be good – it isn’t). At this point, Clint’s not even sure what he’s afraid of. His handler – _is_ _Coulson_ _even going to be his handler anymore, he can’t_ _be willing_ _to keep working with Clint after what happened, he can’t_ – suddenly, he knows what he’s afraid of. After what he’s seen in Genoa, after 37 days spent doubting himself as well as most of SHIELD, Clint still fears more than anything that Coulson’s going to leave. That he’s going to abandon him because he’s _not good enough_. It takes everything Clint has taught himself in the years since he left the circus not to bolt from the room there and then. Instead, he takes a deep breath and faces Coulson.

Coulson’s angry. It’s etched clearly in every line of his face, in the way his jaw clenches and releases before he starts to speak. Coulson’s angry because, Clint realizes as the churning fear in his gut coagulates into icy, dreadful certainty, he’s disappointed. And now Clint doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say or even think, because the agent’s expression is hard and his teeth are clenched but his face still doesn’t look anything like it did as he pretended to be nothing more than a weapon dealer’s henchman. Coulson’s face is still kind and trustworthy, it’s just the face of a kind and trustworthy man who’s been let down by one of his best assets. Which means that Clint was wrong. And he’s still going to get hurt worse than he’s ever been in his whole life, because now Coulson will tell him to go away and never come back and he’ll know that he’s _deserve_ _d_ it. But that’s the point, Clint deserves it, so he braces himself, pins his gaze onto a blank point on the wall and waits for Coulson to deliver the blow.

“It was something I did, wasn’t it, Barton?” His handler’s voice is still a bit on the weak side, but it’s steady enough. Clint can’t help but glance at him while his brain struggles to make sense of what he’s hearing. “May I ask you to explain where I went wrong?”

Clint looks at Coulson’s face again, and this time he really sees it. True, the agent is disappointed and angry, but not at Clint. Coulson’s angry at himself. He’s disappointed that he didn’t notice whatever reason led his best sniper to miss an easy shot. More than that, he’s deeply frustrated because he still hasn’t figured it out, even though he’s had the best part of four weeks to make up for it.

“Look, Barton, I’m sorry, but I’m going to need your collaboration on this, if we want to –”

At that, Clint bursts out laughing, because it’s the only thing that seems to make sense right now. (Except hugging Coulson and maybe kissing him hard, and _oh fuck_ there was a reason he’s never allowed himself to think about that before.)

“Barton.” Coulson still looks serious, and maybe a bit puzzled.

“Sir.” He’s still wheezing.

“Somehow I don’t think we’re on the same page right now.”

“No. No, sir, I’m pretty sure we aren’t.” Clint’s struggling to regain his composure.

“Good. By which I mean, care to tell me which part of my question you didn’t understand?”

Clint almost laughs again when he hears that, because listening to Coulson being so utterly _Coulson_ over what’s happened is doing the best and worst things to him. Then, all of a sudden, the anger that’s been his constant companion for the previous five weeks comes back full force, and he finds himself raising his voice as he speaks. “Of course, sir. The part I don’t understand is the one that leads from me letting you get shot because I couldn’t handle a fucking undercover op when I wasn’t even really in it, to _you_ asking _me_ where _you_ went wrong.”

Coulson’s smile is entirely unexpected, and it’s the full-on one, with his eyes shining and wrinkles appearing everywhere on his face, although somehow he manages not to drop the concerned overtones that cloud his expression. He sits down in a chair, wincing as he settles against the back – it’s obvious that he’s still in pain, and Clint’s heart clenches sympathetically and not without a twinge of guilt. Then Coulson simply asks, “Why?”

Clint stares at him. Seriously, the man’s gone insane. This doesn’t mean that his anger’s going to fade anytime soon. “There’s nothing amusing in this!”

This time, Coulson’s the one to sober up all of a sudden. “I know. That’s why I need you to tell me where I went wrong. You just told me you couldn’t handle the op. That’s a start. But we’re going to need more than that if we want to solve the problem, so I asked why.”

 _Oh._ Clint blinks, once, twice. It’s awful, how this man can rob him of any ability to conceal even the simplest of emotions.

“Please, Clint.”

And _oh fuck no._ Coulson’s never used his first name before. He can’t even begin to admit to himself how much it undoes him. He won’t.

He struggles to be as clear and concise as possible as he tries to explain what happened. He tells Coulson what he saw and how he felt and why, as honestly as he can without giving reasons, without talking about his father or Barney or the circus or anything else beside the mission. He knows that Coulson’s read his file, that if there is the slightest chance that the agent’s really not to be trusted, he’s giving himself out on a silver platter. The truth is, he wants to trust Coulson. It doesn’t matter what this says about him. Maybe he’s just like his mother.

Coulson listens patiently, without moving, although that might be because moving is still too painful for him. When Clint ends his account (right before the part where he broke down because he thought that Coulson was dying, _of course he’s leaving that out, he’s not such an idiot after all_ ), the agent just nods and says, “Ok.” And then, “We have to find a way to get around this.”

Clint nods in turn, _yes, because there’s going to be more undercover ops, a hell of a lot of them, and I can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt because I’m an idiot._

“Do you think this issue is going to come up again in the future?”

Clint has to think about this, really think about this for a moment. He’s just realized that he wants to trust Coulson, hell, he’s just finished telling the man half of what he needs to know to make a complete mess of his mind if he so desires.

But then, he was convinced that he could trust Barney every time his brother came back to apologize. Just like his mother used to believe his father when he said he “wouldn’t do it again”. And he knows that even if Coulson really is as trustworthy as he appears – which right now looks like an amazingly plausible alternative –, this isn’t going to make Clint’s own issues simply fade into thin air.

“Yes, sir. I think it will.” And if this means that they’re not going to work together anymore, well, at least Coulson isn’t going to get shot again. Clint can live with that.

But what Coulson says is just, “Then we’ll have to find a strategy.” A pause. Coulson is considering something. Then he asks, “Is there a color you don’t particularly like?”, and Clint is sure that the agent has gone insane. Again.

Coulson’s lips quirk up in a small smile. “It’s absolutely relevant, believe me. And answer the question, please.”

“Uh. Blue. I really, really don’t like blue.” He’s not thinking about the color of Barney’s eyes as he says so, of his father’s, of the door to Trickshot’s trailer, not at all. “Blue is plain. Boring.”

For a moment, he thinks he’s seen something on Coulson’s face, some sort of passing shadow. The agent, however, is already smiling at him again. “Not _boring_ , I’d say – unremarkable, perhaps. Anyway, that’s good. We can work on blue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points to anyone who guesses what Coulson's problem with Clint's choice of color is. I'm not going to tell, not yet -- it'll come up again in a while.


	4. Trial run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, the last part of our introduction, as well as the one in which we find out about Coulson's big plan. Sorry if this chapter is a bit heavy on dialogue -- you'll get some action next week, I promise.

They don’t talk about it for a month, until they get sent on another undercover op. This time, they’re supposed to go in together, infiltrate a corporate party, gather intel on some transactions SHIELD is getting suspicious about, and get out. It’s a milk run, really, as their few missions after Genoa have been, because Coulson’s still in recovery and Fury’s been very careful about sending him in the field, especially with Clint. The archer can’t blame him, although Coulson’s disapproving gaze every time the Director hints at what happened makes him feel warm all over.

As simple and risk-free as this mission is, Clint can’t help being jittery and nervous as they board the plane that’s going to take them to Ottawa. His mind keeps running loops of _what if it happens again, what if he has to do something that triggers me_ (he learned the term from his first therapist at SHIELD, and after some time he’s decided that he likes it) _, what if I mess up and we get hurt, what if_ he _gets hurt and it will be my fault and_ – He knows that this kind of thoughts won’t lead him anywhere. The knowledge does nothing to hold them at bay. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to the mission, after all. Maybe he should be more careful about working with Coulson. Maybe he should ask for a reassignment. That new guy, Sitwell, looks competent. Clint could start working with him in the field and _damn it_ , he knows he isn’t going to leave Coulson anytime soon, so if he could just stop thinking about what might happen and focus on not screwing up the mission this time it would be _wonderful, thank you very much_.

Before they land, while they’re getting ready in the jet’s cargo hold and Coulson’s sure that no one’s around, the agent hands Clint a piece of cloth. The archer looks at it without understanding. It’s a light blue handkerchief, or at least that’s what it looks like, and it has _PJC_ embroidered in a corner. _Figures_ , Clint thinks, _of course_ Coulson has his initials put on his clothes. For a moment, his mind wanders towards an image of the agent’s underwear, before he clamps down on the thought. Dwelling on it now will _definitely_ not help. Besides, he still can’t figure out what the hell his handler means by giving him that thing.

“This is an undercover op, Barton.” There’s been no Clint anymore, and it’s surely better that way.

“Got that part, sir.”

“I know.” Coulson nods to himself. “What I mean is, we can’t risk anything happening because of – my behavior.” Which is a _really_ kind way to put it, but at least it looks like they’re on the same page on this, and Clint’s fears melt a little because _Coulson has thought about this, which means he must have a solution, or he wouldn’t have agreed to have him on the op in the first place, would he?_

“What are we going to do, sir?” The question comes out as more honest and _vulnerable_ than Clint would have liked, but then, whatever, it’s about Coulson’s safety, it’s _important_.

Then Coulson starts explaining about the handkerchief, and it turns out that the key is exactly that it’s a piece of blue cloth and nothing more. His handler’s plan is so simple, Clint thinks it might actually work. Or blow up horribly in their face – it mostly depends on him. Basically, Coulson giving Clint something blue, whatever that is, means that the agent is going to – change into someone else. Clint is still supposed to follow orders and act like he didn’t get any signal (and Coulson trusts him to be able to do that, which is wonderful and makes him feel a little warmer again), but he will know that whatever Coulson says or does during the mission, it’s not really _him_ talking.

“I need you to understand that this time I gave you this before we started, because I’m going to play a part for the whole mission. In the future, I might have to warn you that I’m – switching while we’re in the field. I’ll need you to be ready for that.”

This means Coulson has planned this as a long-term solution. Clint nods. He can do it. There are, however, a few things that make him doubt the soundness of the plan, especially if they’re going to keep it up for more than just today’s mission. “What if you aren’t able to hand me anything? If we’re bound or separated or you’re simply too far away to do it without being conspicuous?”

Coulson smiles. He looks satisfied but not surprised, like Clint just did something he expected but appreciates anyway. It’s an expression he knows all too well. “Then I’ll say it. Or I’ll try to show you something, but this might not be as easy. We have some work to do, of course, but I’m sure we’ll find a way.”

“Won’t it be obvious? I mean, you handing me things, and always the same color.”

Again, Coulson smiles, but this time it has a slightly self-deprecating hue. Clint wonders if he’s pointed out a flaw that the agent’s already thought about. “You won’t believe how little people see if nothing attracts their attention. You picked a good color for that. A lot of things are blue, which means that it’s not the first thing people will notice in an object. Being plain, or _boring_ , as I believe you put it, is more useful than you might think.” The self-deprecating smile is back for a second, then Coulson’s face stretches out in a relaxed expression. “Besides, it shouldn’t happen more than once in any specific mission, so no one’s going to have enough data to establish a pattern. And in most cases there will be all the time we need for me to give you something before we get in the field, like I did now. The other option is just a contingency plan.” Clint nods. This _might_ work. _Of course_ he’ll try to make it work. He isn’t going to fuck up. He isn’t going to allow his handler to get hurt because of him again. It’s really as simple as that. He doesn’t ask any further questions.

The mission goes smoothly. Coulson fits into the party and chats with finance magnates as if he was raised among them, and Clint keeps his head down and plays the part of his handler’s boy-toy, all eager to please and visibly afraid to make a faux-pas and disappoint his lover ( _and really, whoever designed this cover with Clint in mind is either an idiot or an asshole_ ). It’s easier than he’d like to fit into the role, but Coulson’s tucked the blue handkerchief into Clint’s jacket pocket as they were entering the dining hall – a blatant display of ownership in the eyes of everyone else –, so he knows that nothing they do is real. It helps him keep his balance so much that, when they’re finally back on the jet and flying away after gathering all the intel they needed, Clint can’t help but grin in his handler’s direction. Coulson just quirks a small smile back at him and says, “Good job, Barton.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't easy for me to write, with all the details I needed to fit in while keeping the interaction believable and not too info-dump-y, so feedback is especially appreciated. I'm sure that some things about Coulson's plan are still not clear (I don't think he's considered all the implications himself, honestly), but they'll become clearer in the near future, I hope.


	5. Bahrain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. _That_ Bahrain mission.

Over the next few months, Clint starts to get convinced that Coulson’s plan might actually have a chance to work as a long-term solution. Their little arrangement with the blue objects gets tested in the field more than once, a couple of times with Coulson having to slip Clint something when the situation takes a turn for the worse. Most of the time, however, they’re ok working together without any signal. It doesn’t happen that often that Coulson has to play a role that makes Clint uncomfortable, and for the archer’s part, it’s clear that his handler doesn’t need a signal to recognize when Clint is pretending to be someone else. They’ve more than started to know each other, and Coulson has an obvious advantage, as his superior officer with higher clearance and access to his file and everything. But they work well as a team, which also means that they’re not going to stop operating in the field together. This makes Clint entirely too happy, even more so because Coulson himself looks pleased with the results. Sure, there haven’t been any more shared moments like the one they had after his handler came back from the hospital, and it’s obvious that Coulson prefers to keep things on the professional side, but this makes Clint comfortable, if anything. This _thing_ with Coulson is – he doesn’t want it to become too much.

As distant as Coulson might seem when they’re working together, when his handler gets sent out on missions alone or with other agents Clint finds out, to his surprise, that he likes to keep in touch. Like, _really_ likes to keep in touch. Coulson never lets more than a week slip without sending Clint at least a short message, telling him about the countries he’s working in and the people he’s met. He never writes about anything directly mission-related, of course, because as secure as SHIELD servers may be it’s never a good idea to share the details, and Clint doesn’t need to know anyway. It’s still better than he’s ever expected, to receive an email from Coulson telling him about restaurants in Thessaloniki or art galleries in Buenos Aires, as little as Clint may know about the latter. He tries to be entertaining when he writes back, sometimes from foreign countries with interesting stories to tell as well – it’s the least he can do, but he still doesn’t allow himself to get his hopes up, never puts _too much_ effort in his messages. He thinks, although he isn’t completely sure why, that it wouldn’t be fair to Coulson, as – _important_ as his relationship with the man is becoming. Clint is aware that he has issues, that a constant need for approval from the people he cares about is definitely one of them, and he’s not going to let Coulson get any more involved with that than he already is, if he can help it. He _really_ doesn’t want this thing to become too much.

Coulson writes to him from Bahrain a few times. It’s a long mission, something boring that has to do with protecting a religious leader of some sort (but maybe Clint’s misunderstood, because since when does SHIELD do anything like that?), and it looks like he has plenty of free time to tell Clint about the sights. His last email before he comes back has him waxing poetically about the desert, the solitude, how he’s loved to travel across it even though he was on a jeep with Melinda May, who may or may not be the kind of company he prefers (Clint is not sure where she and Coulson stand – sometimes they seem close, but then May is a strange woman and Clint really likes her, so he’s definitely not going to dwell on the little spike of jealousy that’s blossoming in his chest as he reads). It’s not the first time that Coulson’s messages get a bit too much on the lyrical side for Clint’s liking, but there’s something off about this one. Clint has to read it twice before he notices what’s wrong, and when he does, his left hand starts shaking minutely over the keyboard. It’s in the third sentence, hidden in plain sight as it always is when they’re in the field together. Coulson’s describing how the landscape looks during the day, the vast expanses of dunes, the cerulean sky. _Cerulean_. Clint might laugh if he wasn’t suddenly so worried. _What does this mean. If it means anything at all. It does. What’s gone wrong. What’s Coulson going to do when he comes back._

He gets his answers a few days later, when Coulson and May return to the Hub. Clint almost bumps into them as he comes out of Fury’s office. May’s face is ashen, her lips a thin line, while Coulson looks perfectly calm, not a wrinkle on his suit and tie impeccably straight. As he catches Clint’s gaze, his mouth tightens fractionally. Clint keeps his face blank. He knows that Coulson trusts him to have gotten the message and not give a hint about it. He still can’t help being worried.

In the next few days, information begins to trickle out, and soon tales of the Bahrain mission are all over the Hub. Apparently, there’s been a hostage situation, and May saved the day by going in alone and taking everyone out. No one knows how many hostiles were in there – rumors vary from a couple dozen to fifty, which, well, Clint knows is unreasonable, especially since May went in without a gun. Or so they say, anyway. She quickly earns a nickname, The Cavalry (it might have been Garrett’s idea, but Clint wasn’t there when it came up, so he isn’t sure), and she’s well on the way to becoming a legend when the rumor starts circulating that she’s requesting a transfer away from the field. Human Resources, they say. Then the news gets confirmed. That’s when people, the senior agents at least, realize just how _bad_ it must have been. That’s also the moment when the whispering about Coulson starts. People don’t even try to keep it down around Clint – he guesses that they’re expecting him to join in. Rumor has it that Coulson was on the comms with May when the mission went south, that he heard everything and saw most of it, but while she’s so damaged that she’s asked to get away from all combat operations (and the agents who were around as their plane landed swear that they haven’t ever seen her so upset, that she looked close to tears, which is about as incredible as it gets when Melinda May is involved), Coulson doesn’t look like anything has happened at all. He’s gone straight back to handling field missions, and he’s as collected and efficient as ever. (That part is true – Clint has seen him and talked to him, and he looks perfectly fine. He would have believed it himself, if it wasn’t for the email.) It doesn’t take long for the whispers to turn hostile. “A goddamn robot, that’s what he is,” is the phrase that Clint hears most often, with little variation. He struggles not to correct them, to point out just how _wrong_ they are, only because he _trusts_ that Coulson’s doing whatever he’s doing for a reason, and, most importantly, that he wouldn’t forgive Clint if he broke his cover. When one of the younger agents asks him how he can bear to work with someone he knows must be manipulating him, however, he doesn’t think twice before punching him in the face.

They’re in the middle of one of the Hub’s main atria, so half of SHIELD must have seen it, and the disciplinary process is as severe as possible, considering the light violation (he’s been careful not to break anything, because he might have been angry but he’s not an asshole, not with rookies at least) and the fact that Fury’s personally taking care of it. In the end, Clint gets two weeks of suspension from field work and an awful lot of paperwork to fill. Most of it has to be done under Coulson’s supervision ( _which is totally not something Fury’s done on purpose_ ), so Clint takes up almost permanent residence in his handler’s office. They don’t talk about Bahrain, and Clint doesn’t ask. He just keeps up a light banter, as he usually does when there’s something boring he has to do, and if he lets a bit of information slip here and there about who’s saying the worst things about Coulson and May, well, accidents happen, and it’s not like he’s trying to warn his handler about anyone.

On his last day of suspension, he gathers his things as he’s preparing to leave Coulson’s office. (He brought his bow with him every day and rested it in a corner, as a way to mark his presence in Coulson’s territory or something. The agent never said anything. Clint is more than a little disappointed.) He knows that Coulson’s going to stay in late to finish something, he did that every night for the last two weeks, so he makes a show of saying his goodbyes (Coulson hums noncommittally), but comes back ten minutes later with a cup of coffee and a bag with a powdered donut from the Hub’s cafeteria. He doesn’t say anything, he just rests them on Coulson’s desk, within reach but not too close to his handler’s head. Coulson looks up sharply, inhales the smell that’s wafting from the cup. Then, as the archer’s walking out of the door, he says, “Thank you, Clint,” in a soft voice.

Clint does his best not to freeze on the spot. He swallows before turning around. “You’re welcome, sir.”

Coulson’s smiling, and it’s a tired smile but it’s _him_ , not the controlled facade he’s been wearing since he came back, and Clint’s heart all but jumps in his chest. “Phil. I think it’s Phil now. _Not_ on the job, of course – I know that look, Barton. Don’t even think about it.” His eyes twinkle in slight amusement, and the archer can recognize a deflection when he sees one ( _ok, sometimes_ ), but this time, it doesn’t matter.

Clint has the definite impression that his knees are going to buckle under him at any moment. “Ok. Phil.” There’s a definite pause between the two words, and Clint could kick himself just for it. _Keep your shit together, Barton._ “Good night, then.” Somehow, he manages not to run until he’s out of the building. Then he breaks into a sprint that has his shirt soaked through with sweat by the time he enters his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically, I'm not nice to Coulson, but in the end he gets coffee and a donut so it's ok, right?
> 
> I wanted to thank everyone who's been commenting on this. Of course I enjoy the kind of attention that comes from kudos and subscriptions, but comments, those I _really_ love. I've been having a couple of conversations that really helped me understand how you readers perceive the characters. And, let's face it, I love talking about the boys. So, thank you!


	6. Transparency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My most heartfelt thanks go to Nonnica, whose thoughtful comments have been a huge help while I was struggling to shape this chapter into what I wanted it to be.

A few days and a mission later, while they’re sitting down with a couple of other agents in Coulson’s office (it was a recon, so the debriefing is long and boring even though nothing of interest has happened), and Clint’s making a show of fidgeting in his seat and broadcasting his impatience to anyone who might be paying attention, Phil tosses him a stress ball. Clint glances at it. It’s black, with SHIELD’s logo on it. He huffs out a laugh and proceeds to squeeze the hell out of it. He even makes an attempt at juggling it, but Phil merely raises an eyebrow at him and Clint has to stop because he’s laughing so hard he can’t keep the ball in the air.

The second time, it’s a dark green stress ball. The third time, it’s brown, one of the ugliest colors Clint’s ever seen, with a cartoon drawing of a beaver on it, which is utterly undignified ( _of course_ he tells Phil so). The fourth one is purple, and Clint barely manages to stop himself from grinning like an idiot the whole time. He doesn’t return that one. The fifth time, however, the ball is unmistakably blue. Clint still squeezes it, but he doesn’t make a fool of himself this time, because the last mission’s gone very wrong, they’ve all made a string of stupid mistakes, and now an agent is in medical and they’re still not sure that she’s going to make it. Phil is still himself, or so it looks like, his calming influence evident on everyone in the room, his lucidity in analyzing what went wrong the only thing that’s keeping most of the other agents from going wild with self-blame. The agent survives, but is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

The next time it happens, Coulson’s directing a meeting for newly appointed Level 5 agents. Before he begins, he gives out notepads and pens to everyone (that’s pretty much the only good thing about SHIELD meetings: free stationery, although it’s not like Clint plans on taking notes). Half of the sets are blue and the rest are black. Clint gets handed a blue one. He listens to Phil give a fine speech about responsibility in the field and loyalty to the organization, and is left wondering what the hell his handler is playing at.

It keeps happening, over and over. Sometimes they’re on a meeting, sometimes they’re conducting an interrogation, sometimes (rarely) they’re training new recruits. Some days, Phil simply comes to work wearing a blue tie, and Clint just – knows. _What_ he knows, however, is the opposite of clear. Every time, Clint can tell that something’s off with his handler – something in what he says, or how he words it, or just the way he carries himself as if nothing in the world could faze him, as if he really is a robot who never gets tired or upset or just plain bored with all the paperwork (the whole Coulson-is-a-robot thing is still around, but it’s slowly turning into some kind of inside joke, so Clint guesses it’s ok – mostly. He may still be a bit touchy about it). What the archer doesn’t understand is what Phil’s goal is, why he’s so obviously pointing out all those little tells to him. Some days, he thinks it’s some sort of training, something meant to teach him to recognize when his handler is sincere and when he’s not, so that they won’t need the stratagem with the blue objects anymore. The thought makes him feel vaguely sick. Some days, he wonders if Coulson’s _conditioning_ him, tricking him into thinking that he knows when the agent is playing a part in order to make Clint trust him. He usually spends those days at the range.

Then, one day, he’s having lunch with Jasper Sitwell and a couple of younger agents whose names he will pretend not to remember later (as he always does), when one of them makes an offhand comment about Fury never showing his true face to anyone, and Clint _understands_. It’s simple, really, and he berates himself for not realizing it sooner. Phil is a trained agent, probably the best SHIELD has (he’ll reconsider that statement when he meets Natasha – then he’ll decide that it’s still true, because he can’t bring himself to think of what Nat went through as _training_ ). He doesn’t just put on a facade when he’s undercover – he’s always _in character_ , even though it’s less pervasive than in the field, of course, and most of it is not outright deception, just a careful balance between the parts of himself he conceals and the ones he’s putting on display. Phil may put on a show of trusting people when they deserve to be trusted, and probably the best part of it is true, but he also knows that it’s not a good idea to let anyone see him as he really is. Apparently, he’s recently started making an exception for Clint. It might just be the only one.

Which means that Phil _cares_ about Clint, as absurd and utterly unbelievable as the notion is. Phil cares about Clint as a _person_ , not only for his value as an asset, and this is his way of showing it. Or maybe it’s just a way for Phil to allow himself some comfort in knowing, once in a while, that someone _sees_ him for what he is – which is almost better, because then it means that for some reason Phil has _chosen_ Clint and this is – well. Say goodbye to his efforts not to let this thing with Phil become too much.

It’s the second time in less than a year that a realization about his handler has Clint excusing himself and hiding in the lavatory to calm down. As the archer takes some time to catch his breath back, he can only hope that this time it doesn’t lead to Coulson getting shot in the chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evil chapter conclusion is evil.
> 
> So, short-ish and rather uneventful chapter today. I'll try to make up for it by posting the next one on Friday rather than Saturday morning, but I'm still not sure I'll make it (academically speaking, the days before Christmas break are _awful_ ). I also need to figure out my posting schedule for next week, especially because there will be a chapter I absolutely don't want to leave you hanging on -- not over Christmas, at least.


	7. Pushing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for what I can best define as workplace abuse, as well as public humiliation, although the person responsible has good intentions.

Coulson doesn’t get shot in the chest, but he does get a bunch of agents fresh out of the Academy to train as field handlers. Clint would bet that, if asked, Phil would say that he’d have preferred the former option. Some of the rookies are moderately good, a couple are terrible (although those get sent back pretty soon – Coulson’s a very patient man, an unusual gift in their line of work, but he knows a hopeless case when he sees one), and some are just mediocre. One of them, however, is something different. Akela Amador has graduated top of her class, two years earlier than she was supposed to, and has managed to earn the dislike of all her peers as well as Phil’s within the first week of her training. The fact is, she’s _good_. Freakishly so. Clint’s been there while Phil talked to her more than a couple of times, and the girl – woman, young as she may be – is sharp and clever and cunning, as well as gifted with a talent for strategy and deception that rivals Coulson’s, which really is saying something. She’s also utterly incapable of working with a team. She pisses everyone off so much that, on her first training mission, her assets flat-out refuse to follow her orders. Clint is there when Phil debriefs her on that one, and even though he’s been given a blue coffee cup (emblazoned with SHIELD’s logo, which, well, _seriously?_ ) and a meaningful look before Amador even set foot in Coulson’s office, it takes all the archer’s trust in his handler for him not to bolt out of the room. Phil’s display of authority is more than impressive, it’s scary, and it gets under Clint’s skin in a way the archer never thought it could – at least, not since Ottawa. Coulson knows exactly which buttons to push to turn Amador into a shivering mess of shame, and she doesn’t get a pass on any of them. Worse, he’s doing all that in front of her training partners. Clint leaves as soon as the meeting ends. He goes to the shooting range and puts a hole in the center of every target. With a rifle. His fingers are trembling too much for the bow.

This doesn’t mean that Phil doesn’t give Amador a second chance. And a third, and more after that. It’s the same every time – her strategy is perfect, but she can’t manage to convey her motives to her assets, so as soon as something goes sideways (and it _always_ does – it’s pretty much their job description, after all), they just stop following her orders. Worse, she seems convinced that she’s doing the right thing, no matter what happens. So, after every mission, Phil gathers the whole team and points out everything she did wrong in front of everyone. More than once, he doesn’t stop until she lashes out, or leaves the room. He’s humiliating her, systematically, and even though Clint always has something blue to hold on to while Phil speaks, it gets more and more difficult every time he has to watch.

The second time it happens in a week ( _in a week, Phil!_ ), Clint stays after the meeting instead of running off to the range. Even though most of what he said was part of an act, he can see that Phil’s still angry, and his words come out harsh. “Do you wish to discuss something, Barton?”

“Yes, _Phil_.”

There’s a clear warning in Clint’s tone ( _don’t you dare shut me out on this_ ), but he doesn’t need to follow through with it. Phil deflates immediately. He sinks down into his chair and rests his elbows on the desk. “I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice is thin and he sounds tired and vulnerable. It makes Clint’s stomach twist (which is unpleasant, obviously) and his hands itch with the urge to smooth out the worry lines on Phil’s forehead (which is all too pleasant, so Clint grits his teeth and forces himself to listen as Phil goes on). “I know this is setting you off. I assure you that I don’t like it one bit either.” His eyes search Clint’s face, and it’s scary how the archer knows what Phil’s asking without needing to hear the words.

“I know that you don’t mean most of what you say to Amador.”

“No. I don’t.”

For a moment, Clint is sure that what he’s about to say is one of the most important things he’s ever said in his life. It’s almost funny, because it’s so simple, and Phil still hasn’t thought about it. “But she doesn’t. Know it, I mean. You keep humiliating her in front of everyone, and she’s convinced that you really think she’s a failure.” He tries to convey everything he feels about this whole thing with little more than the tone of his voice. It’s surprisingly easy, considering how vital it is.

Phil’s answer, however, sends Clint’s heart plummeting down to the floor. “I know.” His handler wets his lips before continuing. “But she’s a liability, and soon she’ll be a danger to any asset she sets her hands on, if she doesn’t learn.”

Clint doesn’t raise to his feet, keeps his breathing in check, and doesn’t break eye contact. “You think this is going to teach her?”

“She needs the push.”

The archer exits the room without a word, pretending he didn’t hear Coulson’s startled call of “Clint!” as he leaves.

He doesn’t come back for the next day’s meeting, or on the day after that, so he isn’t there when Coulson sends Amador out in the field again, without letting her have any downtime. She’s supposed to lead two agents to raid an enemy prison camp. She’s also supposed not to take any unnecessary risks, especially not on herself. He learns all of it from Sitwell at lunch two days later, along with the news that the facility burned down, that the remains of the other two agents have been found and Amador is still missing, but they know she went in with the others and there’s no hope she survived. Fury’s just ordered to cut the search.

Clint leaves the table and goes straight to Coulson’s office. He doesn’t care how it looks like, to Sitwell or anyone else. He opens the door without knocking. Phil is standing in the middle of the room, his hands balled into fists. He’s lost the suit jacket and tie, his shirt-sleeves are rolled up, and there’s paperwork strewn all over the floor. He’s seething, his chest heaving, and Clint doesn’t get a chance to speak before all that anger is unleashed at him.

“Barton.” He spits the name out, and Clint barely catches himself before he flinches. “Have you come to tell me you called it? That I should have listened to you? That I shouldn’t have sent her in? Shouldn’t have pushed her so much? Because you’d be right, you know. Do you want me to admit that you were right and I’m a disgusting, incompetent piece of shit, except I’m worse than that because she’s _dead now and it’s my fucking fault_?”

Phil never swears. Phil never yells at Clint or walks up towards him looking like he’s about to hit him, either, but it’s exactly what he’s doing right now. For a moment, Clint freezes, and something of what he’s feeling must show on his face, because suddenly Phil’s backing down and unclenching his fists and making himself as small as he can. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out, and his voice doesn’t exactly crack but it’s a mess of hairline fractures. Before Clint can say anything or make a move, Phil’s out of the door, leaving the archer alone in an empty office. Clint keeps still for a moment, listening to Phil’s heavy steps as he walks away, then he crouches down on the floor and starts tidying up. That, he can do.

Phil apologizes to the team, pinning the blame onto himself and no one else. He talks to Fury, and rumor has it that he’s tried to submit himself to a disciplinary process. The Director refuses. The next day, Phil comes in wearing a blue tie. He keeps it on for a full week, and doesn’t speak to Clint, except to thank him for picking up the paperwork in his office.

The next mission they get sent on together is to take out a Russian assassin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're thinking that Coulson is an idiot, it might have something to do with the fact that, well, _Coulson is an idiot_. No, I don't consider the problem solved.
> 
> Please let me know if this format works for warnings. I prefer to put them at the beginning, even though they can be a bit spoilery if one doesn't need them, because I like to write a variety of different things in my end-notes, but I'm open to suggestions (especially because I'll need to do it again a few times before the end of this fic).
> 
> Next chapter is going to be up on Sunday, because I'm going back home on Monday and I'm pretty sure I won't have the time to post it then. *whine* Also, I learned yesterday that I basically won't get a Christmas break because my thesis supervisor just gave me more work than a human being can possibly do in two weeks. Yay. *end whine* Don't worry, I should still be able to keep up with the story.


	8. Everyone deserves a second chance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha makes everything better. Even when she isn't technically there yet.

Phil is angry. He tells Clint as much, loud and clear, as soon as they board the jet SHIELD has sent for extraction, a tranquilized Natasha Romanoff in tow. Well, what he actually says is that he’s _not happy with how Barton’s handled the mission_ , but his white-knuckled grip on the armrest tells Clint everything he needs to know. Although they’ve somewhat reconciled after what happened to Amador (ok, _fine_ , so they’re on speaking terms again and Phil’s finally ditched the blue ties and Clint has mostly stopped wanting to yell at him for no reason every time they meet – all this should absolutely count as reconciliation, _right_?), Clint is in no mood to deal with his handler’s way of talking (or rather _not_ talking) about things right now.

“Are you _unhappy_ because I didn’t follow your orders, _sir_ , or because I caught up with what she was doing before you did?” Because really, it was obvious that Romanoff had never been trying to complete her assignment, that she was just waiting for them to come and take her out. Clint wouldn’t do that, nope, even if Coulson didn’t understand and they'd had no time to discuss Clint’s idea of a plan B before he went through with it.

His handler answers slowly, pausing over each word, obviously fighting to keep his flaring temper in check. “I am not happy because you took unplanned risks, _Barton_.”

“ _Of course_ , because that’s not the way we work, is it?” Clint knows that he’s baiting Coulson, and it’s probably not fair after a stressful mission like this one, but really, the man is being deliberately obtuse and he can’t stand it. Ok, maybe he isn’t completely over the “wanting to yell at Phil for no reason” phase yet.

“It’s not the way _I_ work when _your safety_ is involved!” Phil spits out. Then he makes a face like he’s just swallowed an exceptionally sour lemon, and stands up abruptly. “I’m going to check on the prisoner.”

Romanoff is taken in and interrogated for so many days that Clint loses count of the times he’s been called to assist. The way she carries herself during the sessions has Clint wavering between admiration, disbelief, and something that feels suspiciously like protective anger towards the people who’ve taught her to conceal her thoughts so goddamn _perfectly_. She’s never sincere in her reactions, of course, but she does give them all the information they needed on the people she works for, as well as a bunch of different organizations she’s been contracted by in the past few years. They check and double-check her intel. It holds every time. SHIELD takes down at least three mob rings thanks to her leads, and has surveillance set up on a fourth they didn’t even suspect existed.

Coulson is conducting most of the interrogations, and has Clint be present as often as he can. They’ve been surprisingly easy on him for not following orders, and he has a feeling that, for once, it’s Phil’s doing more than Fury’s.

One day, they’ve been talking to Romanoff for four hours straight when Coulson stretches out in his seat, smooths his tie (black, pin-striped) with one hand, and asks her, “Why do you think you’ve been brought in?”

The Russian glances at Clint, who’s sitting next to Phil and writing something down on the session’s report (he really can’t understand why Coulson insists on making him write the reports when he always complains about how unreadable his handwriting is afterwards – besides, it’s not like they don’t have complete recordings of everything that happens in the interrogation room). “Because your man called it,” she deadpans.

Clint stops writing and raises his eyes from the report. Without missing a beat, Phil nudges a blue ballpoint pen towards him and motions at the sheets of paper waiting to be filled. “And what makes you think that he has enough influence to ensure that I ask Director Fury to take you in, rather than having you killed?”

Clint is every ounce as nonchalant and unaffected as Phil as he hands him the blue pen back and resumes writing with the black one he already had. He’s never asked Phil to break cover before, and he can only hope that the agent understands now. _You don’t get to pull this shit with her. Be honest, Phil, or you’ll lose every chance you have._

“He doesn’t. But you trust him to have made the right call, or I wouldn’t be here,” Romanoff’s answering.

Phil stands up with a sigh, and Clint can’t tell if he’s decided to drop the act because he asked him to, or if it’s just because of the reckless honesty of Romanoff’s last statement. “Unfortunately, you’re right. Which means that we’re going to give you a chance. Against my better judgment, I might add.”

As they’re leaving the room, Coulson says, loud enough that the prisoner can hear him: “Whatever she does, Barton – it’s your responsibility. No excuses this time.”

As they walk down the corridor, he adds, lowering his voice: “For the record, I still think you’re an idiot.” There’s the tiniest hint of warmth in his tone, something that’s been conspicuously absent for a while, and his lips quirk up in a small smile.

And then Clint wants to just grin back at him and let the whole thing go, he _swears_ he wanted to do that a mere moment before, but the words are leaving his lips before he can think about it. “You, too,” and suddenly they aren’t talking about Romanoff anymore.

“I know.” Phil’s monosyllables have this thing they do sometimes, where they get all clipped off at the end, as if his throat had closed a moment too early, and that’s how it comes out now. “We can – stop, if you want.” And yes, there’s definitely something too tight in Phil’s voice, and Clint suddenly decides that he never wants to hear that tone again, _ever_.

“No! I mean – I mean, _no_.” _Well, kudos for being articulate, Barton._

“I _was_ a – an idiot.” They’re still walking side by side, so Clint doesn’t get to have a proper look at Phil’s face. He likes this position about as much as he likes Phil’s clipped, all-too-controlled tone. He also gets the feeling that his handler wouldn’t stop walking if he did, so he keeps moving.

“ _Yes_. Yes, you were. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t working.” Which is _not_ what Clint had wanted to say, at all, but for some reason it seems enough for Phil.

“Good,” he answers, “because I thought it was, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, but the last scene kept refusing to go the way I wanted it to. So, this is the last chapter before Christmas. I hope to be able to post the next one on the 27th, which is a Saturday, so from then on we should go back to my original update schedule.


	9. Unremarkable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy fluffity fluff. And cat analogies. I regret nothing. Also, we're right after Christmas, and I needed to be at least a little bit nice to Clint before the next chapter.

It takes Natasha the best part of two years to catch up on Clint and Phil’s signals. Of course, by then they’ve had every occasion to perfect the system, and most of the time they don’t even need to use it at all. Still, it’s only when Nat strolls into Coulson’s office one day and shoots them a “Why blue, anyway?” that’s meant to sound uninterested, but actually speaks volumes about how annoyed she is that she hasn’t noticed the whole thing before, that Clint finally feels sure that their little arrangement isn’t going to be uncovered anytime soon.

“Clint picked it, you ask him,” Phil answers, because by then they’re long past the time when he was still trying to stick to “Barton” in Natasha’s presence. No one seemed to mind when “Clint and Phil” became “Clint and Phil and Natasha” – to be exact, Phil calls her Tasha (although it’s always “Romanoff” or “Widow” on the job, of course), and Clint calls her Nat (on the job as well, because no one said it had to make a difference, and it’s not Clint’s problem that Coulson’s basically in love with protocol, is it?). Neither of them ever uses the other’s shortening of her name, and Clint could swear he’s caught Nat hiding a smile at the difference a couple of times.

She’s smiling in Clint’s direction now, as well, but it’s an all-too-innocent smile, coupled with a quirked eyebrow that means _you’d better start talking soon if you don’t want me to hand your sorry ass over to you_. It’s impressive, sometimes, how eloquent she can be without saying a word. Or giving a hint about her real feelings, for that matter. Clint has found out quickly that, unlike what happened with Coulson, the fact that Nat’s always playing a part doesn’t bother him the slightest. It might be that Natasha simply doesn’t know how to deal with people without putting on a mask, that she’s not sure that there’s even anything under it anymore, not after the Red Room and everything that has been done to her. It might be because, unlike Phil, Natasha isn’t a good person, nor would she ever want to fool Clint into thinking that she was. Clint likes her better than about anyone he’s ever met, except from Phil. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to like someone as much as he likes Phil, but he’s still trying not to dwell on that thought too much. He isn’t having astounding success with that lately, to be honest.

Anyway, back to the here and now. Nat wants an answer, and of course Clint’s going to give it to her – she has the leverage to get about anything from him, and no qualms about taking advantage of it. “I used to hate blue. It’s dull.” He steals a look at Phil as he says that, and there it is again, a fleeting glimpse of the shadow he saw on his handler’s face when he said the same thing years ago.

“Used to?” _Of course_ Nat’s picked up the way Clint’s unconsciously worded his answer, and she’s not going to let him get away with it without asking.

“I don’t know, I guess that now I’ve developed some – affection for the color. Sort of. For the record, I still think it’s boring, but at least it has its advantages.” He grins at Phil, who smiles back, but there’s still something off with his expression, and it says everything about how much they know each other that Clint’s able to pick it up. Natasha glances critically at the two of them, but doesn’t press the issue further.

As soon as Phil leaves the office, Clint shoots Natasha a _look_ that says, _do you have any idea of what’s happening here because I don’t_. Ok, so maybe it’s less of a _look_ than a pleading gaze. Nat just smiles at him and shrugs, the smug bastard. Of course she knows what’s happening, and of course she won’t tell him. She’s the _devil_ , that’s what she is, but since she was taken in things have been going so well between the three of them that Clint can’t bring himself to be angry at her for more than a second.

It takes as long as another couple of years for the answer to present itself, courtesy of Jasper Sitwell, of all people. Clint must admit that it’s completely slipped from his mind, replaced by the more and more nagging worry about the way Phil seems to be distancing himself from him and Natasha. They still work together, even though it’s less frequent than before, because the Black Widow is being sent on solo ops more often these days, and Fury’s got used to have Phil as his right-hand man (or, as people like to say when they’re sure neither of them can hear, his _one good eye_ ) so much that now most of the secret projects get assigned to his responsibility – they’re still friends, as well as the best team SHIELD has, but there’s something – there’s something _off_ with Phil, and it doesn’t help that Clint has finally admitted (to himself and Nat, who’d been tormenting him over it for ages) that his feelings for the man are a little more than platonic.

Anyway, he’s walking down a hallway at the Hub with Sitwell and Hill, and Sitwell’s telling them about the time he found Coulson taking a nap inside an enemy base after he’d taken out all the hostiles. “I swear, I came in and he just _stretched out_ , said ‘hi’, and he looked exactly like a human-sized cat, the green-eyed son of a bitch!”

“We both know that never happened, Jasper. Also, my eyes are blue,” Phil’s voice says behind their backs, and they all get a bit startled because how the hell did he manage to sneak up on them like that – and maybe he really is a cat. Clint wonders if he’d purr if he scratched his neck, and _fuck_ _he didn’t need that thought_. Especially since Phil’s never been a fan of physical contact – even when they were as close as he could hope for them to be, he’s never looked exceedingly happy when Clint so much as gave him a friendly bump in the shoulder.

Then he realizes what Phil has just said, and can’t help but burst out in a huff of laughter. “Nope. No way.”

“What?” Phil looks genuinely confused, and it’s adorable, and Clint really has to stop thinking about him that way because he knows it won’t lead to anything and he should just stop.

“What Barton means is, there’s no way your eyes are blue,” Sitwell pipes in, always the helpful guy.

“And what color are they supposed to be?”

“Green,” says Sitwell. “Gray,” says Hill, at exactly the same time.

Clint doesn’t say anything, because really, how could he manage to explain that Phil’s eyes can be green _and_ gray, and sometimes brownish gold or amber, and yes, blue, as well as pretty much any color he can think about, without making it unacceptably obvious that he’s spent far too much time studying their every change?

“Seriously. Stop it. My eyes are blue.” And Clint could swear that the agent is _pouting_ a little, and really, this whole Phil-being-unbearably-cute thing is getting out of hand.

“No, they aren’t. They’re many colors, often two different ones at a time – which is a feature _gray_ eyes are known to possess –,” Hill glances pointedly at Sitwell, “but definitely not blue. Barton’s eyes are blue. Yours, nope.” Her tone is categorical as usual. Sitwell nods emphatically – admitting defeat, Clint guesses. For his part, the archer merely tilts his head in acknowledgment and doesn’t point out that, actually, sometimes Phil’s eyes are blue, but _obviously_ they’re never dull. Or _unremarkable_. Nothing about Phil is unremarkable, ever, no matter how many people seem to think that he’s ordinary and boring and don’t understand how – _o_ _h._

_God, Phil is an idiot._

“Well, that’s new.” Phil’s trying to sound nonchalant now. It isn’t really working.

“Hey, I hope it doesn’t lead you to some life-changing realization about how the world’s all just a big puppet theater and nobody really sees himself as the others see him and the like. You know, there’s this novel by an Italian writer, I’m pretty sure he won the Nobel Prize in the Thirties…” Then Sitwell starts rambling about something no one really wants to hear, as usual, and the topic of Phil’s eyes gets dropped in favor of a joint effort to make him shut up.

It still gives Clint a hell of a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Italian writer's name is Luigi Pirandello. He won the Nobel Prize in 1934, because Sitwell always has his facts straight. The book Sitwell refers to is titled _One, No one and One Hundred Thousand_ ( _Uno, Nessuno e Centomila_ in Italian), and it's basically the story of a man who undergoes a life-changing crisis because his wife told him that his nose looks crooked -- it's an interesting read, if not exactly thrilling.
> 
> If anyone's wondering about the eye-color thing: it was inspired by a combination of my own inability to figure out the color of Clark Gregg's eyes (seriously: are they blue? Because I keep convincing myself that they're blue, but then I see a picture or a scene in which they look green or gray or even brown and I get confused all over again) and the fact that my mother, who has light green-gray eyes, recently told us how she was convinced that her eyes were blue until she was about 13. It was too amusingly (in)appropriate not to use it in this fic.


	10. Torture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings** are in the end notes -- I moved them down there because I couldn't give enough details without making them too spoilery. Please read them if you feel like you might need them -- this chapter is heavy. I guess the title is kind of a big hint.

What he doesn’t get is the time to think about what’s happening with Phil. He supposes it’s part of the job, not having the time to mull over life-changing situations because you get shipped to South Korea, and then again to Somalia with orders to infiltrate a warlord’s ring (SHIELD has been keeping an eye on warlords and the like since the whole business with Tony Stark and the Ten Rings, and this one’s ties have suddenly branched all over the world, which Clint must admit is a little worrying), and suddenly you get a couple more urgent things to think about. The bad side is that he’s going in without Natasha, who’s currently in deep cover somewhere in Latvia. On the good side ( _the very good side_ ), he’s working with Phil again, and even though their contacts are almost non-existent, with Clint laying low for three months and trying to win the trust of the higher-ups, it’s still almost too comforting to know that he has a friend watching over him.

Not so many years ago, Clint wouldn’t have thought he’d ever deserve a friend, especially not Phil, and look where it’s got him.

He clings to that thought, ironic as it sounds, when everything blows up in his face and he finds himself tied up in a basement (terribly cliche, although at least it’s not humid – nothing’s humid in this country, to be honest, and they’re not giving him any water, which is going to become a problem very soon if they keep this thing up), being tortured by people who obviously know who he is (not that they’ve told him, at least at the beginning, but they’re very careful not to inflict any damage on his hands or eyes, so they think they could employ him as a sniper sometime in the future – which coincidentally means that they’re a bunch of idiots, Clint’s met a lot of them in the past), with no way to make contact with Phil or even know if he’s alive. That is, until a man comes in and tells him that he is, but he’s not coming to the rescue.

The man is a tall, burly type with an Irish accent that would sound ridiculous under any other circumstances, and Clint wouldn’t have pegged him as an expert in psychological torture if the sleep deprivation and lack of water in the previous couple of days hadn’t given him a hint on what he should expect. The first time the Irishman comes in, he doesn’t say anything about Coulson – he doesn’t say anything at all besides “Good morning, Agent Barton.” Then he bends down and injects Clint with something. Clint laughs, because really, he’s been trained for this, _he works with the Black Widow, for fuck’s sake_ , and if they think they’re going to get anything out of him with some sort of truth serum they’re in for a surprise. Or, more accurately, they’re in for an unstoppable rant about things like his grandmother’s recipe for stew (not that he’s ever met his grandmother, or made stew, but he made up the memory for himself because it sounded like something Phil would do), or his favorite kinds of lube. Clint’s been there before, four days of it in Budapest, and after Nat came to the rescue Phil swore that he’d have to get his memories replaced just to forget all the shit the archer had said in the hospital (except that Phil didn’t say “shit”, of course, because Agent Coulson never swears, not even when he’s just got his two most cherished assets back from a mission gone beyond awry and worry is etched on his face in lines so deep Clint thinks they’re fucking beautiful).

Turns out, the drug isn't a truth serum. It’s a hallucinogen, primarily of the deliriant type, to be exact (SHIELD made them take classes on that topic, of course they did), as well as probably the worst thing Clint’s ever been injected with – and he’s tried quite a lot of them. This one’s painful as hell to begin with, as Clint finds out within minutes of his first injection, when his veins start burning and his lungs and heart crumple under an invisible pressure. The pain, however, doesn’t exactly fade as much as it’s made distant when the hallucinations kick in. Only, it’s not hallucinations but memories, the bad kind, of his father and Trickshot and _Phil and_ _oh god_ _that’s not a memory is it,_ _this never happened,_ _please make it stop please don’t hurt me please_. When he comes back to a reality that’s still hazy and dripping with panic, his throat feels like he’s been screaming for hours, and he guesses that this is likely what happened. The visions are gone, but he still feels like he’s been stripped naked, or better, flayed open, his insides exposed for anyone to see.

There’s someone in the room, probably has been there for the whole time Clint was unconscious. He struggles to remember if he’s said something that could help his captors, but it’s obvious that this kind of drug isn’t designed to make him talk, unless someone’s really interested in memories of his fucked-up childhood. He can’t guess what else they’re hoping to get out of him if they don’t want to make him talk, which makes the panic grow worse, to the point that he can’t breathe. That’s when the Irishman comes closer and crouches down next to where Clint’s slumped and tied to a chair.

“We know who you are, Agent Barton.”

 _Oh, really?_ Seriously, that was pretty obvious from the start, and if this is the way they think they’re going to scare him into talking, nope, not going to work. Clint smirks – he can allow himself the pleasure of doing that, after his nice little session with the drug. The man, however, looks unfazed as he resumes talking.

“Agent Coulson’s gone, Clint.”

 _Oh god please no_. He can’t keep the jolt of fear from showing on his face, the drug left him too vulnerable for that, and _yes_ , that’s what his captors are aiming for, is it – the drug leaves him vulnerable so that they can work on him. He feels marginally better for a second now that he’s understood, but the knowledge won’t help if _Phil is dead_.

The Irishman smiles, and he looks just like any other big, stupid goon, except that Clint knows he isn’t and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do and now the panic’s back full force. “Oh, no, Clint. I didn’t say he’s dead. I said that he’s gone, left the country two days ago.” That’s not much later than Clint was captured, or at least he thinks so, so Phil must be safe now. He breathes more freely.

“I don’t think you realize what this means, Clint. It’s understandable, of course. Let me clarify that for you. It means that _Phil_ left you here to die.”

 _No, this isn’t true, Phil would never_ – except that there hasn’t been any reference to blue the last times he talked to Coulson, so he can’t know that this is an act, and flashes of the hallucinations from the drug spring up unbidden in Clint’s mind. _Phil kicking at him. Phil telling him he’s worthless. Phil spitting on him and forcing him to – no. That wasn’t true. Isn’t._ This is just what his captors are trying to make him believe. Clint presses his lips together and doesn’t talk.

He’s given another dose of the hallucinogen. This time, the visions cling to his eyes longer, even after he’s regained some sort of consciousness of his surroundings. The Irishman is still there, and he keeps crooning into Clint’s ear, whispering about how _Phil_ (he thinks he screams at him to stop calling him Phil at some point, but it’s getting difficult to tell reality apart from the effects of the drug after the third injection) left him behind and ran to safety because _he doesn’t care, he never did_. Because Clint is _worthless_.

Time blurs, the distinction between reality and hallucination blurs, and it’s all just a constant litany of _worthless disgusting left behind useless doesn’t care deserves to die_. He doesn’t know how much of it comes from the memories and how much is the Irishman talking. Clint doesn’t talk, has forgotten that he’s even supposed to talk if he wants this to end. In a rare moment of partial clarity, he realizes that this is exactly where his captors went wrong: telling him what he’s always believed – deep down, under the layers of treacherous hope about Phil’s friendship and whatever lies he’s been telling himself for years – isn’t going to make him change sides. Clint _knows_ he’s worthless, to Phil’s eyes and Natasha’s and everyone else’s. He’s always known. This does not mean, however, that _they_ are worthless to him, and he can at least not give up anything that’s going to lead to them getting hurt. So he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know how many days have passed when the sounds around him suddenly change. The Irishman stands up from his crouching position at Clint’s side and starts to turn towards the door, but there’s the sharp _snap_ of broken bones and he drops down to the floor. In his place stands Phil, although his face is swimming in and out of focus as he crouches down and reaches out to touch Clint's cheek. For a moment, before passing out, Clint is transfixed by the fear that he has just come to take his torturer’s place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning** for, you guessed it, torture (the psychological kind), abusive language, and drug-induced flashbacks of past abuse (short and non-graphic, as per usual, but it's heavier than the last time). Basically, Clint gets kidnapped, tortured, and sent back to a mindset that stems from years of abuse, in which he loses all sense of his self-worth.
> 
> As usual, do let me know if you feel like I left something out of the warnings, or if I put too many things in them, or if there's anything in general that you think I need to change. Thanks!


	11. Safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, there are detailed **warnings** in the end notes. Please check them if you feel like you need to. Once more, this chapter is not an easy one.

Clint isn’t feeling well. This is, quite possibly, the understatement of the century. If he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he’s feeling worse than he’s ever been after a mission. But Clint isn’t particularly inclined to be honest with himself today, especially not since the doctors assured him that the drug (the components of which were, miraculously, all known and moderately easy to identify) is completely cleared from his system and he will recover with no lasting damage. He has his doubts about the last part, but he sure as hell won’t say anything to anyone in medical, not when they’re allowing him to leave earlier than he wanted for the first time in his service at SHIELD.

Phil isn’t there when he gets out. Apparently, he was under strict orders not to kill the Irishman, which is something Clint can understand, since his torturer obviously knew a lot more about his vulnerabilities than a simple goon without access to SHIELD databases should be able to learn. All this means that information must have leaked, and SHIELD is in desperate need of someone to interrogate in order to solve this little problem. Phil killed that someone, so Fury’s been insisting that he came in for a debriefing that is at moderate risk of turning into a disciplinary procedure. He’s managed to stall for a couple of days, until he was sure that both Clint and Natasha would make it out of medical without anything more than the usual set of fresh scars, but yesterday he’s been called to the Triskelion and they probably won’t let him leave for a few days at least, provided that no complications arise from either the Director or his psych eval (the fact that he broke the Irishman’s neck with his bare hands despite having a firearm apparently counts as an unnecessary display of violence, so he’ll be having a field day with the shrinks as well as Fury).

Clint went missing for six days, which is nowhere near his record. Still, Coulson blew up the entire operation to look for him. He didn’t leave the country, which actually turned out to be the reason why he couldn’t find Clint for so long, since the archer had, in turn, been shipped across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen in the first hours after his capture. The Black Widow, who’d just come back from Latvia, joined Phil three days after Clint disappeared. They raided the compound in which he was held with a squad of four agents. Thankfully, none of the men is dead or seriously injured. Nat, however, took a bullet to the shoulder as they were breaking into the basement. The two of them have been transported to a SHIELD medical facility in Nairobi, and then to New York. On his first day there, Clint listened to the doctors assuring Phil that Nat was already well on her way to full recovery, thanks to her partially enhanced body, and felt like he could breathe properly for the first time after his capture. That doesn’t stop him from feeling guilty.

He feels more than guilty. He feels soiled and disgusting because he believed what the Irishman said about Phil. He feels worse than that because he can’t stop believing it _now_ , even after seeing his handler’s eyes shine with relief as he regained consciousness on the plane that was flying them to Kenya. The truth is, he’d believed his captor’s words for a long time before they were spoken, from the first time he met Coulson years ago to Genoa and Ottawa and Budapest and everything in between. He’ll never be worthy of Phil. And he sure as hell won’t ever be worth Natasha getting shot for his sake. They’re risking their life for him, both of them, and he _doesn’t deserve it_.

A nurse gives him his discharge papers, which say, among other things, that he’s in a fit mental state to go home on his own (there will be a psych eval later, of course, but they’re letting him get some rest beforehand). He signs them with a blue pen. Then he laughs silently at himself, because there’s no way Phil is going to see his discharge papers, and even if he did, why should he notice. He goes “home” – one of his safehouses in New York – and takes a shower. He scrubs until his skin is raw, but he still feels filthy. _Disgusting. Not worthy. Left behind. Deserves to die_. He thinks about drinking himself to sleep, but there’s no alcohol in the apartment, and he knows that he isn’t going to find the strength to get out anytime soon. He’s got some sleeping pills, but the thought of taking anything makes him feel so sick that he ends up choking out bile into the toilet. In the end, he just lies down on the bed and waits for sleep to come. It’s dawn before he sinks into some kind of stupor, and even then, he dreams of his father. In the morning, he takes another shower, letting the scalding water run in rivulets over his skin until he has to lean against the wall for support. When he comes out, the bell is ringing, and he hopes that it isn’t a convocation from SHIELD, because a psych eval right now is probably going to put him straight out of active duty for months. Or forever. He puts on a pair of sweatpants and pulls his hoodie over his bare chest before answering.

At the door is Phil, who looks like he’s just run all the way from the hospital and up six flights of stairs, as ridiculous as the notion sounds.

“I saw your discharge papers.” For a moment, as he struggles to catch his breath back from the run, he seems not to know what to say next. “Talk to me, Clint. Please.”

This, along with the concern that laces his voice, is almost what Clint needs to hear in order to fall apart completely. Almost. It’s enough to make him stumble backwards, effectively letting his handler into the apartment. Phil, however, seems to have decided that it’s best to give him some space to get himself together, because he busies himself with the coffee pot, turning his back to Clint as he works. Clint doesn’t know if he should be thankful for this. A few minutes later, two mugs are set on the table (there’s no milk in the fridge for Coulson, and Clint is sorry about that as if it were something vital), and Phil’s motioning for him to sit down. Clint obeys.

Phil picks up his coffee, takes a sip, grimaces a little, then asks, “What did they do?”

Clint’s exhale is quiet, but still audible in the silence that follows.

“Clint.”

“You know what they did. Tortured me, gave me a dose of hallucinogen that should have killed me but somehow left me alive, tried to scare me into talking. At least now we know that this kind of treatment doesn’t work on me.” Clint’s trying to sound reassuring, he really is. It’s the least he owes Phil for dragging him into this mess.

Phil stares at him for a moment, then murmurs, “Ok,” and then, “Now, what did they _really_ do?”

Clint grips the mug so tightly that he thinks it’s going to break. It doesn’t. Slowly, haltingly, he starts talking to Phil. He tells him everything that happened in Yemen, the things the drug made him see. The memories that are written in his file, as well as those that aren’t, and a few of those that never will be, because they only happened in his mind. He tries to keep the ones where Phil’s most directly involved to himself, but he still has to tell him about how the Irishman had him convinced that he’d been left behind. Then he talks about how he felt when he learned that Natasha had been shot. How he still thinks that what the Irishman said is true. He leaves _disgusting_ and _deserves to die_ out, but _worthless_ slips out of his mouth, and it’s all he can do to grip the mug even more tightly and not look at Phil as he says it, because he knows that he wouldn’t stand the expression on the agent’s face, whatever it is. The mug doesn’t break, but the coffee is stone cold by the time Clint’s finished.

Silence stretches out between them. Clint knows that it’s because Coulson needs to be sure that he won’t add anything else. Then he hears Phil’s chair scrape on the floor, and now his handler is standing before him. Clint stands up in turn, almost by instinct. The table with the two mostly untouched cups is still between them.

“Clint.” Phil’s voice is steady with an edge of determination in it as he says his name again. “Clint. I need you to look at me.” Clint obeys. Phil’s face is open, his eyes kind as usual, but his tone is – not commanding, as much as it’s _definitive_. “I’m going to say something, and then I’m going to ask you a question, and you will answer.” The archer nods.

“In the last few days, you’ve withstood torture. You’ve been hurt and forced to relive your worst memories. You knew that they wanted you to talk. You could have stopped them if you did. Still, you didn’t say anything.” Clint nods again, because maybe Phil needs to be reassured about that.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Clint flinches as if Phil slapped him. “You know why I didn’t!”

Phil’s eyes are still kind and open, and now his tone matches his expression. “I need to hear it from you, Clint.”

“You. And. Natasha. They would have gotten to you if I said anything. That – I couldn’t let that happen. Can’t.” He’s choking on his own words now, and he curses silently at himself for this fresh display of weakness.

“Tell me, Clint. Were we _worth it_?”

Clint’s face contorts in what can be best described as agony. “Of course you’re worth it! How – What –” Phil holds out a hand, _steady, Barton_ , and Clint obeys once more, as he always does.

“It’s the same for us.” Phil’s voice goes thin in the way it does when he’s saying something that’s vital to him, so Clint listens. “You _have_ to know this. Me and Natasha. We won’t let you get hurt. _Can’t_. You’ll always be worth whatever it takes not to make that happen. And _more_. Don’t you _fucking dare_ think otherwise. It’s not about _deserving_ anything. It’s about us being your friends, in the field and outside. _Caring_ about you. You’ll always be _worth it_.” This time, there’s an audible fracture in Phil’s voice as he finishes. Clint stares at him, at once eager and unwilling to let the words sink in. Phil’s hands are shaking minutely.

Then Phil takes a step to his right, so that the table is no longer between them, lowers his hands, palms facing outwards, and asks, “Can I hug you?”

And Clint can’t help but laugh, because Coulson’s voice saying the word _hug_ is not something he’d ever thought he’d hear in a million years. Only, his laughter turns into a strangled sob, and before he realizes it he’s choking out _yes_ and _please_ and his cheeks burn with shame because what will Phil think of him when he’s so _weak_.

Phil just takes another step forward and wraps his arms around him. Clint doesn’t cry ( _it’s not crying if the tears don’t fall_ ), but he fists his hands into the back of Phil’s jacket and just can’t let go. Phil stays still and doesn’t do anything to soothe him, but he’s _there_ and he’s solid and he isn’t going away. They don’t move until Clint’s legs feel like they might give up at any moment, so Phil guides the two of them to sit down on the couch. He angles himself so that Clint can settle against his chest and still be somewhat comfortable. In the end, the archer falls asleep with his head pressed against Phil’s shoulder.

When Clint wakes up, it’s late afternoon and Phil is gone. The mugs they used in the morning are drying over the sink, while a fresh one is resting on the table, a saucer perched over it to keep the coffee as warm as possible. At its side lies a note. _Fury called, have to go. See you as soon as I can. PS go see Natasha._ The words are written in bright purple ink on white paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger warning** for self-blame, self-referenced abusive language, and self-destructive thoughts ( _not_ behavior, although Clint briefly thinks about something that could be considered as such -- I'm not allowing that to happen in this fic). Basically, Clint's head is a terrible place right now. Please consider your headspace before reading.
> 
> ***
> 
> This was easier to write until I started picturing Phil's face while Clint was talking to him.
> 
> Also, in case anyone was wondering, Coulson totally took a respectable-looking fountain pen and filled it with purple ink, because. If you ask, he'll say it's for work-related purposes.


	12. Audrey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought that things were moving forward, right? Right.
> 
> Readers who are concerned about spoilers for AoS should be warned that a major one makes an early appearance in this chapter. I still haven't started watching Season 2, so anyone who got to the end of Season 1 can rest assured that they'll be safe -- this is, obviously, valid for the rest of the fic as well.

Clint goes to see Natasha in medical, as Phil ordered. He tells her a heavily abridged version of what happened in Yemen. She still gives him one of her looks, along with a solemn promise to kick his ass for being an idiot (she says it in Russian – it’s one of the first words Clint learned after meeting her) as soon as she’s out of bed. Clint laughs. A week later, he gets a black eye for his efforts. Nat’s _accidentally_ wearing a ring when she punches him, so she leaves a small laceration just above his cheekbone. He picks at the scab until he’s sure it’ll leave a mark.

Clint doesn’t tell Nat about what happened in the safehouse. He’s sure that she knows that something’s up between him and Phil anyway. Or, to be exact, something _would be_ up if Phil was around. Fury keeps him at the Triskelion for more than a few days, although Clint manages to gather from Hill that it doesn’t look like he’ll be subjected to a disciplinary procedure after all. When he comes back, it’s with the news that _something_ has been found in New Mexico. They don’t have a clue about what it is or where it comes from, which is pretty much the textbook definition of an 0-8-4, and this apparently makes it Phil’s problem. He doesn’t ask Clint to drive with him to the location (a town that goes by the embarrassingly inappropriate name of Puente Antiguo – in the middle of the desert, of course, with no rivers in sight for miles), but the archer gets shipped out there anyway as soon as Fury receives detailed information about what the object is. It’s a hammer, of all absurd things, and from that point Clint’s world, as well as Phil and the rest of SHIELD’s, doesn’t get turned upside down as much as it starts to tilt sideways until nothing seems to make sense anymore.

Straight after Puente Antiguo, and Thor, and finding out that apparently aliens and/or gods have been in this universe all the time (or is Asgard more of a parallel universe? Clint isn’t even sure it makes a difference), comes the news that Steve Rogers didn’t die in 1944, but instead is very much alive, if a tad disoriented. Clint is sure that Phil went more than a little crazy over that – he’s seen his handler’s collection of Captain America vintage cards, as well as the little shield that hangs from his apartment keys, and has been present to more than one heated discussion with Sitwell and Hill over what happened to Bucky Barnes and what were Rogers’ responsibilities in that. (If he had any. Phil, of course, supports the theory that he didn’t. Vehemently. Sitwell isn’t convinced, but he might be just teasing him.) He also remembers that time when they were debating over the exact coordinates where the Captain’s plane could have gone down – there had been such an impressive combination of satellite maps, airplane and fuel specs, and route simulations involved that Clint had seriously entertained the possibility that he had actually stumbled upon a tactical meeting disguised as a friendly discussion. (He hadn’t: Sitwell later explained to him in great detail how Phil had taken offense to Hill implying that the known course of Rogers’ plane had been misreported, and set up four computers just to prove her wrong. Sitwell might have slightly overemphasized the hand-waving and manic bouncing around in his imitation of Phil, but Clint didn’t think it undermined the basic truthfulness of his account.) In the end, Clint has good reasons to regret that he didn’t get to see Phil’s reaction to the news that Captain America is alive – or rather, to regret that he can’t tease him about it as he surely deserves.

Clint and Natasha’s life hasn’t changed that much since Thor and Steve Rogers have (re-)appeared, aside from the obvious side effects that affect everyone at SHIELD, but Agent Coulson is spending more and more time at the Triskelion or in some undisclosed location and next to none in the field, so Clint barely ever gets to see him. It’s not that he allows himself to miss his handler ( _friend, for god’s sake, he can allow himself that at least, can’t he?_ ), or that he worries that Phil is back to that unnerving phase where he seemed to avoid Clint and Natasha for unknown reasons. Still, when he hears tales of an emergency rescue mission in Portland (a guy who can absorb energy or something – not that impressive when you’ve seen the God of Thunder himself), Clint can’t help feeling a stab of jealousy for whoever got to work with Phil on that. He’s also slightly upset that Phil didn’t mention the op at all in his last email, but he squashes that feeling as soon as it raises its head ( _utterly inappropriate, Barton_ – it’s not like he should expect his handler – _friend_ – to tell him about this sort of thing). After that, Clint catches word of some kind of project he’s obviously not supposed to hear about – apparently, Coulson’s working in _Tahiti_ , of all weird places, but given SHIELD’s penchant for obnoxious acronyms Clint can’t be sure that the name refers to the island rather than to something completely different. Anyway, it looks like whatever Phil’s doing there is far from pleasant, judging from the way the worry lines on his brow get deeper every time Clint sees him, and from the number of ties in various shades of blue that he chooses to wear when he’s around.

Clint forces himself not to think about Phil too much. He knows that the agent doesn’t have a say on the projects he gets assigned to, especially now that Fury seems to count on him as his one good eye (apparently, the Director heard the phrase from Hill once and _laughed_ , so it’s become more or less official) more than Clint would have considered reasonable, and if he’s going to be shipped out to the Pacific or anywhere else he’ll just follow his orders, unpleasant as the results seem to be. He also trusts Phil to have a reason to keep things from him, although it’d better be a convincing one, since the pantomime with the blue ties has been going on for months now and Clint is _worried_.

They haven’t spoken outside official meetings for about six weeks when Clint hears about _Audrey_. Apparently, Coulson met a cellist during that op in Portland ( _which has been, what, three months ago, and they’ve talked after that, they even found the time to go out for lunch once and Phil’s tie was a dark purple, which made Clint feel warm and all too happy, and why on Earth didn’t Phil think it was even worth_ mentioning _?_ ), and now they’re a thing. A happy and prosperous _thing_ as well, at least judging from Sitwell’s comments when Victoria Hand, of all people, mentions it. Clint wants to murder them both in their sleep. He lets himself picture in great detail the sound an arrow would make if he pushed it through Sitwell’s eye and into his pillow. Then he looks at Natasha, who raises an eyebrow imperceptibly. Turns out she had no idea as well. Clint feels marginally better, but he still doesn’t know what to think. Except that it’s _unfair_ , but this is a disgustingly childish way of putting things, so he’s going to pretend he’s never felt like it.

In the end, he decides not to think anything of it. If Coulson has found someone and there’s a chance that he’s happy with them ( _her_ ), it’s not Clint’s place to judge. And she’s a cellist, which means that she must be elegant and fascinating and fit in perfectly with all of Phil’s interests that Clint never managed to share, like modern art and gourmet dinners, and classical music, of course, and probably fucking _opera_. Clint doesn’t have a problem with that, he absolutely refuses to.

Another thing he refuses to have a problem with is the fact that Phil is keeping things from him without a warning. Their system was created to help Clint maintain his stability in the field. Coulson can’t be blamed for choosing not to use it out of its proper context. After all, propriety is one feature that’s been conspicuously lacking from their relationship for quite a long time. It’s only logical for Phil to feel the need to bring it back.

If Clint avoids being alone with Coulson when they get to be on the same base from then on, well, it doesn’t require that much of an effort on his part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't hate Coulson. Hate the author, if you must.
> 
> I'm not sure if I'll be able to post anything at all until next Saturday. I'll do my best, and I might even be able to get my regular three updates in, but I have a bunch of things to do that aren't really conducive to having time to proofread (two crucial) chapters in peace, so I can't promise anything. Sorry.


	13. Somewhere in the desert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It looks like I managed today's chapter, at least. Still no guarantees about Wednesday, I'm afraid.

At this point, getting assigned to a remote base in the desert to oversee the Tesseract sounds like a welcome change to Clint, which really should warn him that he’s more upset over the whole thing with Phil than he’s admitted to himself (or, at least, that’s what Nat says when he tells her – he really should be more careful about commenting on his assignments when she’s around). It doesn’t help that the agent responsible for transferring the cube to the new facility is, _of fucking course_ , Coulson. Clint’s almost grateful that the operation is insanely complicated, and far too delicate to leave them with any time to talk. He doesn’t ask how Phil is doing. The agent has never spoken a word about the cellist in Clint’s presence, to him or anyone else, and just being in the same room with him still grates on the archer’s nerves a lot more than it should.

Clint arrives on base at about the same time as what he’s recently dubbed the Ridiculously Demanding Cosmic-Cube Thing (which sounds a little less imposing than Tesseract and doesn’t make for a catchy acronym at all, so he supposes that SHIELD’s not going to steal his idea). After going through an appalling number of checkpoints and secure doors (really, there’s so many of them that he thinks he’s going to die from sheer frustration every time he tries to exit the base – though maybe that’s part of the reason they put them there in the first place), he catches up with Coulson and Hill ( _thank Fury for his overbearing tendency to send her everywhere as his eyes and ears_ ) as they’re walking briskly down a hallway. Coulson’s carrying a briefcase, and Clint doesn’t need to ask to know what’s in it.

He guesses that Hill must have asked Coulson something about that mysterious project of his, since he manages to catch the last snippet of the agent’s answer (“…hiti has been closed down,” and Phil sounds so grim as he says the words that for a moment Clint forgets that he’s not supposed to worry anymore). As soon as she notices that Barton’s within hearing range, however, Hill not-so-swiftly changes the subject.

“Have you been to Portland lately?”

Clint almost groans. Almost. Instead, he grits his teeth as he falls into step at Coulson’s side.

“No, I didn’t really have the time.” Clint isn’t looking, of course, but he’s sure that Coulson’s face is apologetic. He also thinks that his own molars are going to fall off if he clenches his jaw any tighter.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Which is more than a little hypocritical, since Hill definitely had a say on this operation being assigned to Coulson.

“It’s no problem, really.” The hint of a bashful smile is audible in Coulson’s words this time – he’s probably averting his eyes, the corners of his mouth turning up just a little, and really, it says fucking everything that Clint’s still able to guess his expression from the tone of his voice only. He takes a deep breath, in through his nose, out of his mouth.

“I hope that everything is well with Audrey.”

Clint guesses that the answer is something like “Yes, of course, thanks for asking,” but he isn’t listening anymore because Coulson’s just handed him the _goddamn fucking Tesseract_.

Which is, at the moment, safely contained in a steel-gray briefcase and therefore not visibly blue, but really, Clint has seen it before, and he doesn’t think he could ever forget the color if he went blind.

He doesn’t speak for the rest of the way down to the core of the facility, where the Cube is supposed to be stored, nor does he listen to the undoubtedly meaningless chatter between Coulson and Hill. His knuckles have gone white over the briefcase’s handle, and his jaw hurts from being clenched so tightly for so long. He flees to a catwalk as soon as they reach the room – he gives silent thanks to whoever designed the place for making it so that there’s plenty of high perches for him to choose from when he’ll be assigned to surveillance duty. Now, however, he just needs to get as far away from Coulson as possible without having to pass a security check, and going upwards is the most natural choice, as usual.

Phil joins him a few hours later, when the Tesseract is finally settled and even Erik Selvig looks happy enough with the result. Clint is not pacing – as a sniper, keeping still is always more comforting to him than constantly moving –, but his fingers are twitching rhythmically. Phil makes sure that the archer sees him as he approaches, then he leans against the catwalk’s railing, a half-step away from him, and waits. To anyone who’s watching from down under, they look by all means like they’re having an easy conversation about the layout of vantage points in the vault, or something like that. Except for the part where they’re not talking, of course.  


Clint waits until his heart is pounding so fast that he’s sure Coulson must be able to hear it. He tries to sound nonchalant as he starts to speak, but his words come out in a harsh staccato. “Care to explain what _that_ meant?”

Although Phil’s face is impassible, probably to the benefit of whoever might be looking at them, his voice sounds unexpectedly bitter as he answers. “What, the fact that Audrey the cellist was a cover-up, or that I’m apparently willing to break about a thousand regulations just to let you know it was?”

Well, Clint’ll be damned if Phil gets away with all this so easily. “Do you think being sarcastic is going to help?”

“No.” Phil’s answer gets clipped off at the end, his throat clicking closed a moment too early.

They stand in silence for a while, until it’s clear that none of them is going to speak first. In the end, Phil sighs and straightens up. “Fury wants me back at the Triskelion tonight. I don’t know when I’ll be sent out here again.” He sounds tired.

Clint answers with a toneless, “Ok,” before he realizes just how utterly _wrong_ he’s doing this. “No. Wait. Not ok.” Phil stops mid-step and turns back towards him. For a moment, he looks every ounce as tired as he sounded before – defeated, almost. “Phil, _what the hell did that mean?_ ”

The agent smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I – I really met a cellist during the mission in Portland. Name’s Audrey. We tried – we were seeing each other for a while. A couple of weeks. It was over before it really started – she said that she knew I’d never lie to her.” His smile is definitely pained now. “It was a good cover, however, so I – I guess I just never told anyone I’d ended it.”

Clint nods. It still doesn’t make full sense, and right now he _needs_ it to make sense, it’s the most goddamn important thing in the world. “It was a good cover _for what_?” he asks, his voice barely steady.

Phil just smiles again, the tired expression settling down over his features like a blanket. Only the corners of his eyes crinkle in something that Clint recognizes as a silent apology. Then he turns around and walks away.

Four days after Coulson’s left for the Triskelion, Clint sits down with his Starkpad balanced on his knee and tries to craft an email to him. He thinks of writing about how predictably boring life at the Pegasus facility is, which is the reason why he’s been speaking with Dr. Selvig much more often than he’d thought possible. He could describe how the scientist’s childlike wonder over everything Tesseract- or Asgard-related is almost contagious, so that by now they all wait anxiously for him to explain the results of the next reading. He could ask Phil how it’s going, if he’s had news of Natasha, who’s out on a mission somewhere in Eastern Europe (again). He could make small talk.

In the end, he sends out a single line.

_sorry i was an asshole._

It takes less than an hour for Phil to answer. Clint thinks he can hear his voice as he reads.

_You weren’t._  
 _Sorry I ran away._  
 _I’ll let you know when I can come back._

Clint doesn’t think for a moment about doubting him.

Before Phil can come back, however, Selvig’s team starts receiving erratic readings from the Tesseract. Clint doesn’t know that Coulson is outside, all his competency devoted to coordinating the evac from the second his helicopter landed, while Fury descends to the vault. He doesn’t have the time to think of anything more definite than a general association of _Phil – hope – safe_ when Loki appears out of god-knows-where ( _Asgard? a parallel dimension? Hell?_ ), equipped with a bunch of not-really-inspirational nonsense about freedom and what looks like a ceremonial spear. Which would make Clint laugh, really, if the icy blue energy blasts weren’t a big hint on where the spear draws its power from, and why exactly it should be feared. As he staggers to his feet, the archer is prepared for medium-range attacks, minor explosions, and close-quarter stabbing. He isn’t prepared for the gentle, almost caring touch of Loki’s spear on his chest, and for what happens next. His last thought before surrendering his willpower to the Asgardian is that the choice of color is so fucking appropriate, the universe must be kidding him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You knew this was coming, didn't you? (I'm still sorry.) Also, as you've seen, it's not always Phil's fault. Mostly. Not entirely. Sometimes. (If anyone noticed that he did a bit more than omitting to tell people that he and the cellist had broken up, well, I suppose he'd say that it was a really good cover.)


	14. New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, I'd like to pretend that I'm not shamelessly indulging in hurting characters in this fic.

Phil is nothing more than a distant thought at the back of Clint’s mind as they fight against the Chitauri. Part of him knows that it’s because if he started asking himself what his handler will have to say about Loki’s mind control ( _about his betrayal_ ), he’d be out of his mind with guilt in a matter of minutes. Which definitely wouldn’t help when he needs to focus on shooting arrows at an utterly unreasonable rate and trying not to fall to his death at the same time – mostly because if he died Phil would lose his occasion to kick Clint’s ass over what he did on the Helicarrier, and he’s sure that the agent is absolutely looking forward to it.

The mental image of an angry Coulson, worrisome as it may be, helps keep the litany of _you hurt people you killed people who were a thousand times better and worthier than you’ll ever be_ at bay, for the time being, at least. Clint knows that he deserves the guilt, he deserves it more than he ever did in his life, but right now he needs to focus on the fight. It’s for the others’ benefit, he thinks – or, at least, he tries to convince himself that it is. If he’s to be honest, he knows that he’s being disgustingly easy on himself. He’ll pay for it later. Probably. It would be just fair. But he hopes, even if he has no right to, that it’s Coulson who takes it all out on him, rather than someone he doesn’t trust.

Ok, so maybe Phil is a little more than a distant thought at the back of Clint’s mind during the battle. Still, when the fighting finally ends and SHIELD medical personnel is trying to patch them up without acting too skittish around him and Dr. Banner (because whatever damage the two of them did on the Helicarrier, they’ve still fought together for everyone’s safety, and apparently this carries some weight – or, if it doesn’t, Fury’s orders do), he finds out that he doesn’t have the courage to ask Nat when Phil is going to join them. He guesses it’ll take a while after all that’s happened – they’ve made a mess, both in the air and on the ground, and Clint suppresses a shudder at the thought of just how _furious_ Phil will be over all this. Provided that the agent isn’t more preoccupied with having a few choice words with whoever thought it was a good idea to send a fucking _nuke_ over New York. This time, the image definitely sends a shiver down Clint’s spine, and it’s the most pleasant feeling he’s had in more than a few days.

He accepts Stark’s offer of shawarma as nothing different from what it is – a way for the team to show him that they see him as one of them, even after Loki’s mind control. Clint wonders vaguely if he should be grateful, or at least more upset about what he did on the Helicarrier, but he’s been trained for this kind of situation, and he won’t let it affect him now any more than it did during the battle. Then, again, maybe he’s just in shock. He does feel vaguely distant from everything that’s been going on since they’ve stopped fighting.

He really hopes that Phil understands that he had no choice about doing what he did. If there’s one thing Clint is sure about, no matter how guilty he may feel as soon as the facts sink in completely ( _as soon as Phil has had a good go at yelling at him_ ), is that he had absolutely no choice. His mind has yet to begin to shake off the memory of Loki’s thrall. The sensation – it was physical. It was _everywhere_. He can’t describe what it felt like. He wants to shower and scrub himself raw and reach under his own skin to clean himself of all the _blue_.

He wants _Phil_ to do it.

Maybe, someday, Clint will ask him. For now, he will make do with what Phil decides to give him, even if it’s just angry words or disbelief or betrayal, or just plain disappointment.

The team eats mostly in silence, and Clint can’t tell if it’s companionable or awkward or tense. Not that he really cares. They’re all hungry, Banner and Rogers predictably more than everyone ( _he’s having shawarma with fucking Captain America in Brooklyn_ , Clint realizes – he can probably rub this in Phil’s face for as long as they live), so they’re almost finished eating when their drinks arrive (Stark’s fault for ordering a cocktail – the man would be a walking stereotype if he wasn’t so obviously faking it). As soon as he gets his beer, Thor solemnly raises his mug (he insisted against a bottle) and proclaims, “To all our shield-brothers who fell in the glory of battle today.”

Everyone nods without speaking. Then Rogers tips his glass as he adds, “To Agent Coulson, a hero and a friend, whose loyalty will be sorely missed.”

Clint’s world stops moving there and then. He’s dimly aware of the sound of blood rushing in his ears, towards his heart, of Banner and Stark’s concerned voices as he starts to visibly shake. The only thing he sees is Natasha’s face, the way her lips are pressed together in what he recognizes as soul-crushing pain, enough that for once she’s unable to conceal it completely. _No._

“What – what happened to –” He can’t say _Coulson_ , or _Phil_. He can’t say anything. He lurches forward in his seat, almost doubling over. The others are silent. _No, please, no._

In the end, it’s Rogers who speaks. “Agent Coulson died on the Helicarrier. Loki’s spear pierced his heart. Director Fury says the medical team called it. There was nothing they could do.”

Clint looks around, desperately trying to find something to hold on to, anything to tell him this is a lie. But Nat’s lips are still a thin line of pain, and the decor around them is unforgivingly red and brown, with not so much as a trace of blue.

Thor’s voice is almost soft as he says, “I was there when this came to pass. I can assure you that the Son of Coul died a noble death, and his soul will –”

Clint doesn’t listen to anything else. His chair rattles on the floor as he stands up and flees.

He finds himself in the same safehouse he went to after what happened in Yemen. He’d curse at his subconscious for the choice, but he doesn’t have the strength. He feels drained. Everything looks fuzzy, edges and corners blurring into his vision. He wipes at his eyes out of instinct, but he finds them dry to the touch. He isn’t crying. The mug that Phil used on the day he came looking for him is still in the cupboard above the sink. Clint takes it down, feels its weight in his hands. Phil was the last person who touched it. The last person who touched Clint was an intimidated-looking nurse.

He throws the mug against the wall. It doesn’t shatter like he expected it to – the handle just falls off, a clean break. The two pieces clatter on the floor. Clint drops down to his knees after them. The kitchen tiles don’t feel as cold as they should, not when his skin is protected by the material of the tac suit. In the end, he just curls up into a ball in the middle of the room, making himself as small as possible. His heart feels like it’s shrinking in his chest as he wills everything around him to disappear.

It’s dawn when Natasha enters the apartment, and Clint wonders dimly whether it was really so difficult to find out where he’d gone or if she had some reason to leave him alone for a while. Nat doesn’t speak, she just lowers herself down to the floor and curls up around him. They stay perfectly still like that until Clint, who hasn’t slept properly in something like 60 hours, passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank God for Natasha. As always.


	15. Last resort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the very few chapters that it actually hurt to write. And proofread. No specific warnings apart from that.

When Clint wakes up, he’s been moved to a room inside Stark Tower, which is apparently going to be renamed the Avengers Tower as soon as Stark finishes the necessary repairs and renovations. Although it will take some time for everyone’s quarters to be ready, each of the Avengers has already been assigned a guest bedroom. They seem to have discussed this arrangement without him, and from the look of it he doesn’t get a choice about moving in. He supposes that Nat has given the others at least a general idea of what his relationship with Phil was. He doesn’t want to think about it, nor does he want to talk to her. Or to anyone, really, but especially not Natasha. He feels like the moment he says Phil’s name aloud, he’s going to crumble. This might be a perfectly normal reaction to being responsible for the death of the most important person in one’s life, but Clint doesn’t really have a baseline from which to judge what’s normal in this kind of situation.

In the next few days after what the media have already dubbed the Battle of New York, he makes a decision. First off, he goes back to SHIELD for “debriefing”. The word has never sounded more hypocritical. Fury, of course, wants him to go through a psych eval before moving on to anything else, and it’s not hard to guess that it won’t be his last one. The Director also says that they’ll have to “run some tests”. SHIELD still needs his formal consent to any procedure they intend to subject him to, so he gives it, under one condition. He wants to see the footage of what happened on the Helicarrier.

“Not an option.” Fury’s one-eyed gaze is glacial. Clint has withstood worse.

“It’s the only option, sir.” He knows that SHIELD desperately needs data on what Loki’s done to him. This kind of thrall is a danger to a lot more than his possibilities to ever work in the field again. In the end, Fury caves in and promises to send him the footage as soon as, and not a day before, the medical staff clears him for active duty.

In the next couple of months, Clint goes through an endless row of psych evals, physical exams, and generally more tests than he’s ever been subjected to. Some days, he gets so many vials of blood drawn that he feels dizzy for hours afterwards. They don’t allow him access to his bow, or any other weapon, for that matter. He makes up for it by throwing kitchen knives, and sometimes forks, at a small target pinned to the wall in his room, but he doesn’t tell anyone about that, of course. Natasha sees it and purses her lips imperceptibly, but the paper target’s still there the next day. He takes that as silent approval.

He sees a therapist, of course he does, and talks about what happened while he was under Loki’s control as openly as he can without letting the doctor suspect that he’s playing her. He isn’t, not really, even though everyone is surprised at how quickly he’s recovering. The only person who’s understood what he’s doing is, of course, Natasha. He knows that she doesn’t approve of his plan (assuming that one could call it a plan and not a desperate last resort), but they don’t talk about it. They haven’t grown distant, exactly – they just have a mutual understanding not to discuss a specific part of what happened with Loki, that part being the fact that Phil is dead. Or, if Clint is right, he _might_ be – but Clint is very careful not to dwell on that thought until it’s time.

The time comes when Fury sends him the official communication that he’s been cleared for active duty, along with a secure message containing a video attachment. It’s hours of footage and audio, but Clint still has Stark check that the file hasn’t been tampered with and that it’s the entire length of the material available before opening it. Then he settles himself in his quarters and asks Jarvis to play the video on a holographic screen.

Natasha comes in no more than ten minutes later. Neither of them says a word. She sits down on the floor at his side, and he just lets her.

The file contains everything from the moment Loki was brought onto the Helicarrier to when he fled. Clint already knows most of what happened, although he’s only seen it from one perspective ( _Loki’s, not his own. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t there._ He clings to that thought as tightly as he can. He doesn't really believe it for a second). It’s still unmeasurably harder than he’d thought, to see all of it unfold before his eyes. He has to stop the video for a moment to catch his breath after the confrontation between the Black Widow and Loki. Nat still doesn’t speak, she just squeezes his hand once. He doesn’t tell her that he actually _admires_ what she managed to do. He’s sure that if he did she’d punch him again. Or worse. Yeah, probably worse.

When it comes to the footage of Phil’s death, Clint is sure he must have stopped breathing entirely. He keeps very still as the images run under his intent gaze. He forces himself to look and _listen_.

_You’re going to lose._  
 _Am I?_  
 _It’s in your nature._  
 _Your heroes are scattered. Your floating fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?_  
 _You lack conviction._

Then Fury comes into view, and it’s almost more than Clint can take to hear Phil _suggest_ to the Director that he use his death as _motivation_. He still doesn’t stop the video until the medical team has zipped up the body bag.

Then he raises to his feet and punches the holo-screen. It dissolves into a cascade of sparks. Ironically enough, they’re blue.

Before deciding to play the video, Clint has thought about the possibility that what he’d see would confirm that Phil is dead. He’s steeled himself against grief as well as he could. He’s also carefully persuaded himself that it’ll be better for him to _know_ instead of wallowing in the limbo of uncertainty he’s forced himself into since Loki. But what crashes into him, almost sending him down to his knees again after he’s shattered the holo-screen, is not grief but rage.

Because Phil was wearing a dark gray tie when he went after Loki. Because even the ridiculous cannon he tried to blast the Asgardian with was fucking orange. Because the only trace of blue anywhere in the footage of Phil’s death is Loki’s spear, and Clint knows that it doesn’t count. Because they’ve talked about it, they set this sort of boundaries immediately after Ottawa – it has to be something that Phil deliberately touches, and that he could hand to Clint if he were near, even when he isn’t. They even had a discussion over whether blue suits and shirts could fulfill the requirements, which Phil settled by pointing out that he couldn’t really take either of those off in the field and hand them to Clint (and no, the suit jacket has to match the trousers, so it doesn’t count either because it’s not a free choice, and could Barton _please_ stop laughing?).

It doesn’t matter how many times Clint watches the footage again, how thoroughly he searches for clues. There’s nothing. There was no secret. It wasn’t a cover-up. Phil knew that he could die, and he did nothing about it.

Phil is dead.

Phil died because he was a fucking idiot and he went against Loki alone, which was the most monumentally stupid thing he could do and Clint is furious. He hates him. Hates that he thought he could save the world when he should have been thinking about taking cover and waiting for the storm to pass. Except that he wouldn’t do that, _of course_ , because he had a fucking hero complex and he must have wanted to feel like Captain America for once in his useless life. It’s his fault. He deserved it. Clint isn’t sorry for him. He was an idiot and an asshole and he _didn’t care_ and he deserved every ounce of it.

Clint isn’t aware that he’s saying those things aloud, that he’s all but shouting them and choking on the words as he moves across the room, knocking random things down as he goes. It’s only when Natasha has him pinned under her weight that he realizes that she’s stopped him, that he must have fought her. He stops thrashing as soon as he understands. Apparently, he can’t fucking control himself even when he isn’t under the thrall of a Norse deity. Shame and guilt and the torn-up remains of his anger roll inside him, until he thinks he’ll be sick. He can’t breathe. His surrender must show on his face, because Natasha moves away a little, without letting go, just enough for him to curl up on the floor. Again. She speaks to him in hushed tones, something meaningless that could be Russian, or English. Clint wouldn’t understand anyway. He hugs his knees as tightly as he can and does not cry.

After what feels like hours have passed, Clint asks, his voice hoarse, “How can you stand to be around me?”

Natasha tightens her grip, and it might be the most emotional gesture she’s ever graced him with since they’ve known each other. A hint of the Russian lilt is back to her voice as she answers, “I’ve killed many people, too.”

Clint nods without speaking, grateful that she doesn’t try to convince him that it wasn’t his fault. He doesn’t say, _none of them was Phil_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dramatic irony's a bitch.


	16. Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to be careful around, as you might have guessed from the title. Detailed **warnings** are in the end notes, as usual.

Phil is dead.

The next months are hell.

SHIELD starts to send Clint out on missions again – mostly with Natasha, sometimes with Steve, and of course never alone. He knows how long it will take for Fury to trust him to operate on his own, he’s seen it after they brought Natasha in. _They. Yeah. Fuck._

Everything reminds him of Phil. It’s no different than it was before he saw the footage from the Helicarrier – only, now he doesn’t have any sort of twisted hope to help him get through each day. Phil is dead. It wasn’t a lie, he’s not coming back, and it was Clint’s fault he died. It’s his first thought in the morning and the last before he falls asleep.

Still, Clint doesn’t allow himself to stop functioning. He has bad days, of course – days in which he barely speaks to anyone and eats just enough to keep himself upright. He also has worse days, when he locks himself in his apartment at the Tower and tells Jarvis to keep the others away from the door. He has a deal with the AI: Jarvis won’t allow anyone inside Clint’s quarters when he asks him not to, unless Clint starts to display clear signs of self-destructive behavior. They even ran a checklist of what should count as such, from not eating for more than 18 hours to full-blown self-harm (which Clint wouldn’t have considered something he could ever be in danger of doing before, but then, he’s lost faith in many things about himself since Loki), and Jarvis knows the archer’s preferences about which members of the team he should call in each different scenario.

In the end, it happens only once, a little more than a month after Clint has seen the footage from the Helicarrier. He doesn’t do anything spectacular, he just wakes up after a dream about Phil (he was alive, they were having coffee, they talked about nothing in particular, and Phil’s voice was soft and kind and he looked content and Clint felt _safe_ ) and doesn’t feel like leaving his bed. It’s not like he’ll ever be naive enough to fool himself into believing that things are fine as long as he doesn’t get up and face them – he just isn’t sure if he’s going to find the strength to move anytime soon. He asks Jarvis to lock the door. It must be said in the AI’s favor that he waits until Clint has been lying in bed for most of the day before giving him a five-minute warning and then letting Banner in. The doctor doesn’t fuss, he just brings a warm bowl of some kind of rich soup (Clint thinks it’s vegetarian, but he isn’t sure – food tastes different these days, the flavors muted and dim like everything else). Banner waits until Clint’s finished eating, then sends him to the bathroom to have a shower. Before leaving, he tells Clint that he expects to see him at breakfast the next day. The archer obeys. Neither of them feels the need to talk about it.

Most of the time, however, Clint takes care to maintain an at least marginally balanced state of mind. It’s just, he knows that if he lets himself go past his breaking point he won’t be able to come back. Sometimes he thinks that’s what he deserves, to go mad and lose himself in grief over what he’s done. What he can’t be sure of, however, is that if he did he’d keep his memories of what happened, and he doesn’t want to be given an easy way out of his guilt. There’s also the fact that _Phil_ wanted the Avengers Initiative to work, and therefore Clint isn’t allowed to ruin everything just because he feels like he doesn’t deserve to be alive.

He lets some mostly innocent version of that last thought slip after a fight, as the team is lingering in one of the Tower’s common rooms, still hanging together because it was a close call and no one is especially keen to let the others out of their sight (Clint has found out recently that he’s starting to care about his teammates, somehow – it almost made him smile, until he thought about how happy Phil would have been to see him like that). To his surprise, it’s not only Nat who nods in understanding, but Tony as well (apparently, he’s also started to call everyone by their first name in his mind). “Not allowed to let your life go to waste, are you?”, he says grimly. Clint looks at him, notices the way his jaw tenses as he swallows, and wonders for the first time if he should start talking to the team about what happened more often.

Not much time passes before he starts doing just that. He really shouldn’t be surprised to find out that most of the others can relate to what he’s going through in some way. Of course, it’s still not going to ease his guilt or make him miss Phil any less (he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop missing him, not when every waking second is filled with Phil’s absence at the back of his mind), but in some twisted way it helps to know he’s not the only one who has to live with guilt. He almost gets sent into a fresh spiral of self-blame when he realizes that he’s basically taking comfort from other people’s suffering, when he doesn’t even deserve to be comforted at all. Hell, he’s still not sure that he deserves to be alive. On second thought, maybe it would help if he tried to stop thinking about that.

In the end, he starts trying to make up for it by being there for the rest of the team when he thinks they need someone to talk to. It works great with Steve, who’s still adjusting to today’s world and often can’t stand being alone, and, more surprisingly, with Thor, even though it takes Clint an ungodly effort to listen to the Asgardian talk about how he misses his brother. He takes it as penance. It doesn’t work so great with Bruce and Tony. He doesn’t even try it with Natasha. Their relationship has changed since Phil’s death – now, they share a grief that no one else on the team is ever going to feel, no matter how close they grow to the others. It makes it hard to be in the same room with her, sometimes, and outright impossible to distance himself even if he wanted to. When Nat needs comfort, she comes to Clint’s bedroom at night. They sleep together, not really cuddling but always touching, and never talk about it during the day. Clint, however, never comes to her, even though he hasn’t been able to sleep through the night alone since New York, not even once. It’s one of the signs that warn him that no matter how hard he looks like he’s trying to heal, he still doesn’t think that he deserves to feel any better.

The anniversary of Phil’s death comes and goes. That morning, when they meet for breakfast, Steve coaxes Clint into a hug. The archer stays very, very still, and doesn’t give a hint on how sick the contact makes him feel. He gets through the day as usual. He’s good at not letting the others see what he’s thinking. He guesses that with all this practice he’s probably going to become even better than Phil. Maybe he should start wearing a blue tie to work.

The thought sends him retching up his dinner into the toilet, hugging himself on the floor until he can’t possibly be out of the common room for a minute longer without making it unacceptably obvious that he’s breaking down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning** for self-destructive thoughts. Clint blames himself and thinks that he deserves to die. Some of his grief is reflected in his eating patterns, but it's a symptom rather than anything specific. There's no active suicidal ideation or self-destructive behavior apart from that, and he does try to find a way to cope.
> 
> ***
> 
> Next chapter is going to be better, I swear. Which basically means that I'm going to stop torturing Clint and move on with the story already.


	17. Something blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The eponymous chapter. The whole fic was started with this scene in mind. I'm understandably nervous.

It comes as no real surprise to Clint and Natasha that Fury assigns the Avengers to Jasper Sitwell’s responsibility. He’s a capable handler, although not many people at SHIELD seem to be aware of that, and, more importantly, he was friends with Phil, which, silly as it might sound for the two battle-hardened agents, is now a necessary condition in order to work with the Black Widow and Hawkeye, as Victoria Hand found out after they spectacularly blew up their first (and last) mission with her. Of course, being the Avengers’ liaison with SHIELD entails a lot more than just dealing with Clint and Natasha – on that topic, Sitwell’s also one of the surprisingly few people who can manage to keep both Steve Rogers and Tony Stark in the same room without letting the two of them get lost in their bickering (which is mostly a pretense by now, a way of testing their handler’s patience, but Clint is honestly not sure that Sitwell’s realized that. He has no doubt that _Phil_ would have). The only other option that would have worked for a liaison was Hill, but nowadays Fury’s reluctant to let her handle a field team because, apparently, he needs her to supervise every single one of SHIELD’s projects, since Agent Coulson is, well, dead, and therefore can’t be of much help to anyone.

There are moments, especially during meetings, when it becomes apparent how little Phil’s death has changed the way Clint, Natasha and the others work with SHIELD. Sometimes, while they’re waiting for their handler to brief them on the mission of the day, Clint gets the distinct impression that it will be Phil who strolls in and hands them their instructions. Other times, Sitwell will make one of his customary wry remarks, and Clint will feel his chest constrict over his lungs and have to consciously force himself to keep breathing in order to stay upright. Unless it’s especially bad, no one notices beside Natasha. Sometimes, he thinks he manages to fool her as well. He’s become _great_ at working undercover, really, since he’s started practicing every day.

A little less than 18 months have passed since the Battle of New York, when Sitwell strides into the room where the team is waiting for what Tony’s started to call “their mandatory check-up with Uncle Jasper”. Not that the meeting with Sitwell is anything unusual, per se – Fury insisted that all Avengers, even those who aren’t officially a part of SHIELD (or, in the case of Tony Stark, vehemently refuse to become one), be required to meet with their handler at least once a week, although he had to make an exception for Thor, who’s been spending most of his time in Asgard lately. So, Sitwell comes to visit them at the Tower every Friday, and pretends that the kind of antics that are bound to happen in a household of five to six superheroes don’t drive him nuts. (Clint is sure that Sitwell’s using Phil as a model for this, consciously or not. Whatever the reason, it hurts.)

This particular Friday, however, Sitwell sounds unusually annoyed as he comes in, rummaging through his jacket pockets (Clint can’t help but notice how utterly inelegant he looks compared to Phil, and why doesn’t this kind of random thought ever stop striking him, and why isn’t it ever less painful?). By way of greeting, he says, “Really, Barton – who the hell still writes their name on ballpoint pens? After fourth grade, I mean.”

Clint Barton is a trained agent of SHIELD and a spy, who by now has had about a year and a half to practice hiding his feelings to the people he lives in the same building with, 24/7. One of those people is an AI who literally sees everything, and another is Natasha. It still takes every ounce of his training for him to keep still and not let his breathing pattern change when he hears Sitwell’s words. He’s thankful that he’s sitting down, with a table lying between him and their handler, or there would be no way he’d be able to hide the way his left hand spasms, clenching and unclenching once before he forces it back under control.

Still, his voice is the usual, sarcasm-layered monotone as he answers, “If it’s a good pen, sir, I don’t see why anyone else should have it. I guess I just like staking my claim.”

Sitwell rolls his eyes. “It’s not a _good_ pen, Barton, it’s a _ballpoint pen_ , there must be a hundred of them in my office – conservative estimate –, and I assure you that I would’ve thrown it out if you didn’t seem to be so – _possessive_ about it. I mean, they do sell them at Target in packs of 24.”

“No, they don’t,” Tony interjects in his familiar smart-ass tone. “You don’t actually shop at Target, do you? Not that _I_ do, of course. But the larger packs of pens are only available online. You can get them in packs of 10 in stores, no more, and trust me, I know, because I had a PA once who refused to write with anything else. I fired her after two weeks anyway.”

Clint doesn’t think he’ll ever be more grateful for one of Tony’s obnoxious interruptions, because right now Sitwell’s leaning over the table to hand him the offending object, and he doesn’t particularly trust his voice at the moment. Still, his fingers are steady as he plucks the pen from the agent’s hand. It’s a ballpoint pen, indeed, the kind that Clint could have used to write a report in Sitwell’s office, and then left behind and carelessly forgot about, so that it was left to lie around somewhere for weeks until the agent found it. Except that, of course, Clint did no such thing. The pen has a piece of paper stuck to the barrel that says _CLINT BARTON_ in his own messy, slanted scrawl.

It’s also blue.

Clint makes a show of slipping the pen into his pocket with a satisfied smirk, and gets through the meeting without missing one of his answers.

By the time they’re finished, his head is spinning with the effort it takes to control his breathing, and his vision has long gone blurry at the edges. As soon as he’s sure that Sitwell’s out of the room, he pushes the chair as far back as he can and drops his head down between his knees, sucking in air in big, noisy gulps. He doesn’t remember taking the pen out, but now he’s clutching it in his hand, tightly enough that the shape makes a dent in his palm.

His ears are ringing so loudly that he barely hears Tony’s startled “What’s going on there, Merida?”, as well as Steve’s call of “Clint!” He does, however, feel Natasha move to stand behind him. She places a hand on his shoulder, which is a testament to the fact that she, at least, has understood what’s happening, since she normally keeps physical contact to a minimum when the others are watching. Clint guesses that she needs the grip to steady herself as much as him.

The others must have noticed Nat’s out-of-character reaction as well, because the next questions are directed at her instead of Clint. “Widow, what’s happening?”, Steve asks, instinctively slipping into command mode in the face of what he obviously believes is a threat. Clint would laugh at how wrong he is, if his chest didn’t already feel like it could burst open at any moment.

Instead of answering right away, Nat asks, “Clint?” The archer tries to open his mouth, but his jaw feels like it’s locked in place, and his tongue can barely move anyway, not to mention form coherent words. So he nods, then he realizes that he still has his head down between his knees, so this probably won’t be very helpful. But Natasha, of course, can feel the muscles in his neck tense and release under her fingers, and she takes it as permission.

“The pen Sitwell gave Clint is a signal.” Clear-cut words, no unnecessary information – a professional assessment if there ever was one. There’s a pause after that, and Natasha’s grip on Clint’s shoulder tightens marginally, so the archer nods again, once, to give her permission to go on. He manages to feel grateful at her for seeking out his explicit consent, before her next words wipe out his last thoughts of anything beside _Phil_.

“Agent Coulson is alive.”

Hearing it said out loud in Nat’s flat, almost clinical voice is what makes the last piece fall into place in Clint’s mind. It’s real. Phil has sent him the blue pen. He isn’t dead.

_Phil is alive._

And if a few tears spill down Clint’s face right then, well, his head is still hidden between his knees, so it’s not like the others will notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sitwell may or may not be Hydra in this scene. Your pick. Let's just say I'm glad that Phil was careful and chose a not-entirely-obvious way to get the signal to Clint.
> 
> Also, I claim no personal experience of the format in which pens are sold at Target. This is just what I gathered from a brief exploration of their website.


	18. Personal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reader, meet POV shift. POV shift, meet reader. I hope you like each other.
> 
> A couple of notes: from this chapter onwards, the timeline for this fic will merge right into the last episodes of MAoS Season 1. This chapter in particular is set in the middle of episode 1x20. There are spoilers for everything up to that point, including and not limited to major plot turns. Lines in italics are quotations from the series, for which I sadly can't take credit. I'm also shamelessly playing with episode titles (just in case anyone didn't notice).
> 
> On a definitely more serious tone, see the end of the chapter for detailed **warnings**.

“ _Ok. Ok. We need to hold it together. Listen. All that anger, all that pain – you need to hold it in, and focus it on Skye. She’s alive. And she just walked out of here hand in hand with someone she knows is a murderer, because she’s playing him. Just like he played us.”_

The words ring true as he speaks, his voice bearing no hint of the fact that his own mind is so far removed from what he’s saying, he should be ashamed. They need to hold it together and focus on Skye. That’s all they have to do. They can’t afford the luxury of losing their nerve. _Skye_ can’t afford it. She’s in danger because she managed to keep calm and do the right thing, which is what _Phil_ should be doing now, instead of leaning against a wall in an empty room and struggling with the certainty that he’s going mad.

Phil Coulson is losing it. He supposes that’s common knowledge, at least since he’s had his pathetic little temper tantrum out there in the snow, before they discovered this base, Providence or whatever they’re supposed to call it – it doesn’t feel much like providence right now. The following days just made it plain to everyone that it wasn’t merely a moment of despair.

Still, Coulson losing his mind is probably the one thing the team needs absolutely fucking least right now. Because Ward is Hydra, the words are carved into the fake window panel in the bathroom, and Skye’s gone with him despite knowing that, putting her life at stake with the same apparent carelessness the team has learned to know and love, and they just _have to get her back_. Right now, this is their only priority. Triplett was right. They don’t need Phil’s sorry ass.

None of this changes the fact that Garrett ordered Ward to take Skye because he needs to access the hard drive that contains Simmons’ research. The research on Phil’s death. Which makes it Phil’s fault all over again.

_This is still about me._

It’s not about his “sorry ass”. It’s about living with the knowledge that not only did Loki kill him and he was brought back to life even though he begged the doctors to _let him die_ (and _nope_ , he’s not going down that path, not again, not after all the nights he woke up screaming and pleading since the memories of TAHITI came back), but that right now the simple fact that he’s alive is putting the people around him in danger.

That’s why pushing May to leave had felt so right. Phil felt better than he had in a long time when he looked at her face while they talked and he saw the hurt that meant she’d go away. He supposes that’s just one more thing that makes him a horrible person. But for one day at least, as he and Triplett and FitzSimmons were in Portland, fighting to free Audrey Nathan from a madman’s threat, he had hoped that one of the people he cared about was safe. Which basically equals away from him, these days.

Only, the fact that May had gone away made it possible for Ward to take Skye without meeting any resistance. One more mistake. One more time Phil only thought about himself, and now someone is in mortal danger. Not just _someone_ – Skye. Again.

_You know, Agent Coulson, it’s – dangerous – to keep sending her in like that, all alone – when she means so much to you._

Not for the first time, Phil asks himself how he’d be feeling if it was _Clint_ in Skye’s place.

It seems that the closer to breaking down he is, the less he can stop himself from thinking about Clint. In Portland, while Fitz, Simmons and Triplett were busy empathizing with his non-existent feelings for a woman he’d pretended to be in love with, Phil couldn’t stop thinking about _Clint_ finding out he wasn’t dead. He wonders if he even got the signal at all. He wonders if it still meant something to him. If he’ll ever forgive him for disappearing.

He has to choke down an honest-to-god _sob_ at that thought. _Fuck, h_ _e_ _really_ _is p_ _athetic._

_A broken man, who didn’t know he was broken._

He’d suspected that he was falling in love with Clint at least since the Bahrain mission. He’d been sure since the whole horrible mess with Akela Amador. In the end, he’d decided that it wasn’t so important, after all. He knew that Clint cared about him – that they both cared about each other. Clint knew that, too. It was _enough_. More than enough. He wouldn’t allow himself to hope for anything different, especially when it obviously wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

And even if it was, he wasn’t going to make a move on someone who was clearly just falling in love with the first person who’d ever shown them they cared. Clint deserved more, and besides, Phil had rules. The thing he’d started with Clint in Ottawa had been working, for both of them. The trust it had brought to their relationship was good, a strong foundation for work and, if he allowed himself to hope, friendship. Anything more would’ve meant taking advantage of what they’d built. Phil has rules. He doesn’t take advantage. Especially not of Clint.

Caring is important. It can even be a source of strength, if used the right way. It _was_ , without doubt, for him and Clint. Love is complicated and useless and, of course, irrelevant. So he’d kept his distance, detached himself even more when it had felt like he couldn’t, and when everything failed he’d run away and pretended to be dating a cellist for months. He’d been an idiot, and it hadn’t mattered, because caring is important and love, well, not so much.

It became important – _vital_ – the moment he picked up a phone and his voice broke over the words “Barton’s compromised.” In the end, it was just one of the many things that went to hell that day.

It’s also one more thing he doesn’t need to think about right now, and really, he’s being irrational. Clint is alive – at least, he was right after Hydra attacked. So is Natasha, as far as he knows. Phil is sure that they’re both reasonably safe under Stark’s umbrella of political connections, which is definitely more than he could say of any other SHIELD agent he can think about. Still, he can’t help being afraid.

He’d waited far too long before letting Clint know he was alive. At the time, he’d felt so guilty over the whole thing that he could barely breathe as he planted the blue ballpoint pen in Sitwell’s office. He wondered how long it would take for Jasper to find it, if he would ever bring it back to Clint. As he lay prisoner under the machine, at Po and then Raina’s mercy, he hoped against hope that it would be Clint who swooped in and saved him. A romantic notion, really. Also, the thought of a man who still hadn’t realized that a simple connection to him was going to make a target of everyone else.

Now, Phil is afraid that Clint _did_ receive the message. He’s terrified that he’ll come looking for him and that Garrett’s going to get to them both. When he closes his eyes, he sees flecks of blood on a young millionaire’s manicured hand. He sees Eric Koenig’s corpse laid out on the kitchen table under Simmons’ competent gaze – only, it’s Clint’s face that’s staring back at him.

_I saw you holding Skye in your arms. Bleeding. Dying. Knowing it was all your fault._

He feels guiltier than ever because even now, despite the knowledge that being near him means being in mortal danger, he can’t help wishing that Clint was here.

He _knows_ he’s being irrational. Not to mention disgustingly weak. He knows that he can’t trust his own mind right now, even if it weren’t for the thoughts of Clint. He should just focus on getting Skye back, and then disappear. That’s what he needs to do – disappear, go off the grid. If possible, make everyone believe he’s dead. Fury made it, after all, and at least half of SHIELD already believes that about Phil as well. Or maybe he should just, you know, die. It’s merely a simpler, more direct route. It’s what he should have done long ago.

Of course, that wouldn’t change anything, would it. Things have spiraled far out of his control. Garrett’s still going to want Simmons’ research, and he’s still going to hurt the others in order to get his hands on it. Moreover, they don’t know what Quinn or Raina or _Ward_ want. What the team needs is not him disappearing, or some renewed attempt at self-sacrifice. That would just leave them stranded in the middle of nowhere without a guide or protection. Which is exactly what happened to Skye when Phil pushed May to leave, and now he’s thinking about making the same mistake all over again instead of _fixing things like he should be doing and not standing there and throwing a tantrum like a goddamn child!_

He can’t breathe. His chest feels too tight and he can barely see where he is and someone’s going to enter this room at any moment and he can’t let them see him like that, of course he can’t. He has to get himself together and he has to do it _now_.

_Fuck it._ He’s been in worse situations in the past ( _no, he hasn’t_ ). He shouldn’t be losing his shit over what’s happening. He doesn’t feel like himself, not since he died. Maybe they really did something to his brain. May was right. They shouldn’t trust him. He shouldn’t trust himself.

They should have let him die.

_Stop it!_

_Breathe._ There’s still something he can do. First of all, he can _not_ let Simmons, Fitz and Triplett see how out of his mind he really is. He can manage that, although judging from the fact that Simmons was going to make _pancakes_ to make him feel better, he might need an extra effort for his part to be believable. Then he can hope that Clint is as far away from him as possible (which should be easy, since with all probability he’s in New York right now), and at least try not to think about what could happen to him. Then they can go get Skye back.

At least they know that the bunker is safe. They can gather their meager forces before they take off. Phil takes a breath, pushes the panic to the back of his mind, right next to the thought that he’d really, really be better off dead, and gets back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger warning** for the beginning of a panic attack (very mild). More importantly: self-blame and death wishes are a recurring theme in this chapter. There's also what I consider a clear reference to suicide, but no definite ideation.
> 
> ***
> 
> As you might have noticed, I have _very_ strong feelings about the whole TAHITI business. Feelings that cannot be placated by an off-screen rant (sorry, Phil, but "stupid, stupid, stupid, and cruel, and very stupid" doesn't even _begin_ to cover it). I'm starting to think that it might take more than this fic for me to get over that.


	19. Providence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, "it was about time that one of the boys did the right thing".

When Maria Hill walks into the Avengers Tower and asks Hawkeye – she doesn’t give orders anymore, not since she’s no longer Deputy Director Hill and there’s no SHIELD to answer to – to join her on a mission on Canadian soil, Clint stares at her in moderate disbelief.

“A mission?”

“Yes. I suppose that we might call it an extraction.”

“There’s no agency anymore.” Does he really need to point out the obvious? No agency means no responsibility towards agents, which means no more extractions – not for the first time, Clint thinks about all the men who must have been left behind, stranded in foreign countries with no support and the knowledge that most governments now see them as members of a terrorist organization. It’s just one more thing that’s fucked up about the whole situation. _God, he hopes Phil isn’t among them._

Everything has a tendency to come back to Phil these days – now that Clint knows he’s alive, it’s getting harder and harder to restrain himself from reaching out. It takes all his efforts to remember that Phil must need to keep his cover, or he’d have come forward himself instead of just sending a message. At least, Clint hopes so. Some part of him still fears that Phil doesn’t want to have any contacts with him for some reason. He supposes he’s lucky not to have much time to dwell on this kind of thoughts, with everything that’s been happening lately.

In the meantime, Hill resumes talking, and it tells a lot about how out of her depth she is after the fall of SHIELD that she feels the need to explain her decisions. “Fine. I need someone to come with me and – catch up with an old friend.”

Clint takes in her minute, almost imperceptible hesitation, along with the way her eyes stay glued to his face, as if she’s afraid that he’d know she’s hiding something if she looked away. Which is a dumb strategy, really, since he’s had his practice with the Black Widow ( _why doesn’t anyone ever seem to remember that?_ ), and therefore it takes a bit more than direct eye contact to fool him into believing someone’s lies. He nods at Hill, and definitely does not let her notice how his palms have gone suddenly clammy with sweat.

As soon as their plane has taken off, while they’re flying toward some godforsaken place in the tundra with what looks like half an army in tow, Hill turns towards Clint and says, “I think I should give you some – details about the person we’re going to meet.” There it is, that minute hesitation again. _Either she’s doing it on purpose, or someone_ _here_ _has to work on their poker face._

Clint’s mouth is dry as he answers, which doesn’t help soften his already harsh tone. “I don’t think I will be needing that.”

Hill’s hand inches towards the gun at her side. _So, not doing it on purpose after all._ She must know that Clint will always be a faster shooter than her, but she also knows that it would be suicidal for him to attempt anything when they’re essentially surrounded by hostiles. “Is there anything I should know, Barton?”

“I’m not Hydra.”

“I believe we’ve already established that, or I’d never have let you in on this mission. So tell me, Hawkeye, what am I supposed to think of this?”

“Let’s say that you’re not the only one who’s been – catching up with old friends lately, _Deputy Director_.”

Hill’s lips turn sharply downwards, her displeasure obvious. “I’ve always suspected Coulson to be a sentimental idiot. Now, I have proof.”

Clint merely turns his head towards the window and doesn’t move for the rest of the flight. If he concentrates, he can feel the outline of the blue pen from Sitwell’s office digging into one of the tac suit’s many pockets.

When they touch down over the Canadian border, Clint is grateful for the chilly air that bites at his cheeks and lets him pretend that the shivers running down his spine are due to the cold. They let Colonel Talbot enter the base first because they don’t have much room to argue – and it’s a testament to how weak SHIELD’s position is right now that Hill’s had to accept this sort of conditions from the Special Forces –, but the two of them follow suit. As they stop before walking round a corner, Clint struggles to hide the fact that he has to press one hand against the wall to keep himself upright. The Colonel’s voice is coming from the hallway at their left. Then another voice answers, and Clint is sure that his knees are going to buckle right about now.

“If I come out, will you shoot me? Because – then I won’t come out.” There’s a smile in Phil’s tone, but it’s not a kind one.

“Hold your fire, soldiers.”

Now Phil is moving towards them – Clint can hear his voice and footsteps approaching. “This is one of the most classified facilities on the planet, Colonel. How the hell did you find it?”

“I told them.” Hill doesn’t give him a warning before marching round the corner. Still, Clint moves without thinking, falling into step at her side.

Phil is standing in the middle of the hallway, his arms spread out at his sides in a gesture that’s designed to simultaneously look non-threatening and remind Talbot that he’s still in control of the situation. His tie is charcoal gray, and Clint finds himself wondering if the choice still has a meaning.

As soon as he sees Hill and her companion, Phil stops dead in his tracks. Clint could even fool himself into thinking it’s because he didn’t expect what surely must look like a betrayal from Hill, if he wasn’t the one Phil is unmistakably staring at, his eyes wide. For a split-second, as his stomach fills with a mix of relief and joy and dread and he isn’t sure what else, Clint thinks about running up to him and – he doesn’t know. But then something flickers over Phil’s face, and whatever it is, it definitely doesn’t look like happiness, or relief.

A moment later, the agent has composed himself, and he’s smiling pleasantly as he greets the two of them. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Commander Hill. Agent Barton.” As he says Clint’s name, his hand goes up to subtly straighten his tie, but he stops halfway, as if he’s just remembered that it’s the wrong color. “I’d say I’m glad to meet you, but the situation is – not the best it could be.”

The situation, it turns out, is bad enough that it takes nothing more than a brief tête-à-tête with Phil for Hill to turn his back to Talbot and take him and his men out. Clint can’t say he misses them. After that, Phil gathers them all inside a room, Hill and Barton along with what Clint understands to be the scattered remains of his team. He gives a summary of what’s happened in the previous days, as well as instructions on how they’re going to operate. Throughout this impromptu briefing, he looks nothing but the picture of efficiency and steadiness. Still, Clint can see the facade tearing at the seams in the way he holds himself, braced against a threat, in the way his voice almost catches when he gives them the reason for May’s departure, when he admits that he had no clue about Ward’s betrayal, that Skye’s quick thinking is the only thing that’s saving them from a complete disaster at the moment. In that, he’s still Agent Coulson as Clint knew him when they started working together – as quick and keen to point out where he went wrong as where others did. This time, however, his own mistakes are much more prominent than usual. As he speaks, he looks everywhere but at Clint.

Clint, in turn, doesn’t take his eyes off Phil for a second. He listens, and tries to will away the leaden weight of worry that’s settling in his gut as the meeting goes on.

As soon as he’s finished giving them the details, Coulson asks, “Any questions?”

Hill’s voice pipes up from the back of the room. _There’s six of them, counting Phil, and she chose to stand near the door. Could she make it any more obvious?_ “Forgive my asking, Phil, but I feel like I have to. Will you be ok handling this mission?”

Phil’s voice is icy as he answers. “As I believe I’ve already told someone in this room, _Maria_ , I’m saving the nervous breakdown for later. Now, everyone get back to work.” He smiles, but this time it looks dangerous rather than reassuring.

Still, the remaining members of Coulson’s new team look a little less disheartened than before as they shuffle out of the door. The hold that Phil has over them is obvious, and it makes even Clint feel a bit more confident that they’re at least going to do _something_ about this whole situation. Hill’s back is ramrod straight as she leaves, and she’s definitely not _shuffling_ , but her walk is stiff.

Clint doesn’t move from his place in a corner of the room. Neither does Phil. He looks at the archer, and for a moment his gaze is almost pleading.

“B– Clint.” This time, his voice does catch in his throat. What he’s really saying – what Clint hears – is, _please. We don’t have time for this._

For once, Clint refuses to trust his handler’s judgment.

Words rise up in his throat, choking him. He wants to tell Phil that it’s ok, except that it isn’t, and he can’t just stand there and watch him struggle to keep it together and not do anything. He also desperately wants to say that he’s sorry, although he isn’t sure what for anymore. Some part of him just wants to say, _thank god you’re alive_ , and _can I touch you, please_ , and also, maybe, _I love you_ , but he won’t do that, not now, not when Phil is barely holding himself together before his eyes.

In the end, he simply steps forward, takes the blue ballpoint pen out of his pocket, and hands it back to Phil.

Phil looks down at it, staring blankly at his hands. Then his face does something funny that the archer’s never seen before, the corners of his mouth turning sharply downwards while his features scrunch up in a way that’s so weird it almost makes Clint burst out laughing. Then he realizes what’s happening, and all of a sudden his heart clenches so hard it’s painful.

Because that face is Phil trying not to cry. And failing, judging from the broken sob that escapes his throat and the way he’s already turning around to hide his face from the archer’s view. Clint doesn’t have any time to think before his arms wind up around Phil, hands stroking his back, murmuring soft words of comfort while the other man struggles for a moment, then goes limp in his embrace. He still manages to choke out, “I’m sorry,” and there’s something that sounds alarmingly close to panic in his tone. Clint just tightens his hold and waits for Phil to let go.

Phil breaks down and cries, messily, although he’s still fighting to muffle his strangled sobs into Clint’s shoulder. Clint holds him and breathes feather-light kisses all over his hair, and this time he says everything. He whispers, _it’s ok. It will be fine. She’ll make it. We’ll make it._ He also says, _I’m so happy that you’re alive_ , and _god I missed you,_ _how I missed you, you have no idea_ , and _I thought you were dead_ , as well as _are you ok,_ _please be ok_ , and just _Phil_ , over and over.

When they board Hill’s plane fifteen minutes later, Phil’s hand slips into Clint’s. The touch is tentative and achingly sweet, and the archer tightens his hold until he’s sure it must hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when I sit through episodes 1x18 to 1x20 thinking "for fuck's sake, someone give Phil a hug already!" Ok, maybe I've been thinking that for the whole of Season 1. Don't judge.
> 
> Also, I might just be a terrible person, but you've got to admit that Coulson's "nervous breakdown" face is hilarious. Until you realize what's going on, of course.


	20. End of the beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *raises rating* *re-reads chapter* *lowers rating back*

_To be clear, I’m recommending the termination of Project TAHITI. Under no circumstances should these procedures or drugs be administered to anyone, ever. The cost is far too great.  
Thank you, sir._

After May has closed her laptop and left – she offered no words of comfort, so that Phil wouldn’t have to reject them –, Phil sits down on his bed in the motel room, hiding his face in his hands. He supposes he should be feeling _something_ right now – despair? worry? a pinch of reassurance at knowing that at least it wasn’t Hydra who supervised Project Tahiti – that it was, so to speak, _a person he can trust_?

_Can he?_

Other people’s words ring in his ears. _Hypergraphia, aphasia, catatonia. Complete psychosis._

_Memory replacement._

_We didn’t want you to be that – thing._

He doesn’t feel anything. He just feels bone-achingly tired, exhaustion the only thing that’s running through his veins, gluing him to the bed and not letting him rise and get ready to sleep, as much as he knows he should.

He’s been sitting there without moving for some time when he hears a knock on the door. Out of habit, he raises his head and answers, “Come on in.”

Clint’s voice on the other side of the wooden panel is dry but amused. “This is not your office, Phil. The door’s locked from the inside. Though I suppose I could pick the lock, if you like.”

“Clint,” Phil whispers, and suddenly the exhaustion is gone, replaced by a number of different – things he doesn’t really want to analyze right now. He crosses the room in two strides and opens the door. Clint is there, his body leaning just a little against the doorjamb, not quite putting his weight onto it. He looks – at ease. Comfortable, almost. Steady. Before he realizes it, Phil has his arms around him and is pulling him in for a hug. The door closes behind them.

Phil can’t speak. It comes as a bit of a surprise – even his most powerful emotions seldom rob him of the ability to express them in words. He’s always been almost as good at talking as he is at listening. But right now joy and apprehension and guilt and regret are so raw in his mind that he can’t do anything but keep Clint trapped against his chest and breathe in his scent. _You’re here._ _You’re still here._ _Thank God. Thank God._ He doesn’t realize that he’s whispering the words against Clint’s neck until the archer pushes him away, gently, just enough to take his face in his hands.

Clint is looking at him with an intensity he’s rarely seen in anyone before. His eyes are bright as he asks, “Do you want this?”

Phil whispers, “Yes.”

Neither of them closes his eyes until their lips touch. They both need to see. That is, until the smell and touch and _taste_ send a jolt of bliss through Phil’s veins, and he lets his eyes flutter close. Their first kiss is tentative, dry, their lips barely parting, and Phil is already sure that nothing will ever feel better in his whole life. _Twenty seconds in, and he’s already beyond sappy._  


Clint’s breath is raw as he breaks the kiss, just to come back a heartbeat later, his lips moving along with a shy swipe of his tongue against Phil’s lips. Phil opens his mouth a little, ready to grant him access, but their breath barely mingles before Clint’s moving on to kiss the corner of his mouth, then the curve of his jaw, then his neck. Phil stays still, understanding that Clint needs this, as much as he needs to map Phil’s face with delicate fingers that skirt over his cheeks, his eyelids, the tip of his nose. He isn’t allowed to reciprocate, not yet, but he can’t help the surge of _want_ that’s pulsing in his limbs, a flood of different things that add up to so much more than simple arousal.

It becomes too much, all of a sudden, when Clint nibbles lightly at the underside of his jaw, just so. Then Phil tilts his head downwards, sharply, until he’s caught Clint’s lips again. He’d never have thought that Clint would be the one for slow, soft kisses, while he’s the one whose breath burns with an urgency that’s close to despair, whose teeth catch on Clint’s lower lip before the archer’s mouth opens. He tries to keep this raw, _irrational_ need of his under control, but Clint must have caught on it, because he feels him smile a little into the kiss.

Then Clint’s hands slide down his torso and slip under his jacket to untuck his shirt. They tease at his hips and play with the hem of his slacks, with his belt buckle, and Phil has to grasp at the last tendrils of his control if he doesn’t want to lose himself completely. He wants to feel everything, and _remember_ , because there’s no doubt about the fact that Clint will have to go, and it’ll be sooner than later, and then Phil will be alone again and he needs Clint to forgive him and he needs to be able to know he’s _there_ even though he can’t really be with him in person and he _needs, he needs_ –

He’s trembling, and Clint stops for a moment, resting his forehead against Phil’s. “Is this ok?”

“Yes.” Phil sounds breathless and desperate and needy. He is. “More than.” After a moment, he adds, “Please –,” and his voice cracks.

Clint growls in response, a throaty sound of possessiveness, and Phil can’t help the sheer amazement that runs over him as he realizes that Clint wants this – _needs_ this – as much as he does. He goes for Clint’s mouth again, running his hands over his shoulders and back, feels him shiver and arch into the touch. Instinctively, he pushes at Clint, but the archer pushes back instead of yielding. Phil’s jacket is already slipping down to the floor, and Clint’s fingers on his shirt’s buttons are nimbler than it should be legal.

It doesn’t take long to establish that it’s Clint who’s going to win their silent little battle for dominance. Phil will ask himself later why he’s so willing to give up his control of the situation. Right now, Clint pushes him back onto the bed without much effort, and when he carefully places his tie on the nightstand, within arm’s reach (the rest of their clothes, or at least enough of them, are strewn haphazardly on the floor), Phil can’t help the shiver that runs through him again. Clint licks his lips, then bends down to run his tongue over Phil’s. His smile is positively devious.

It’s no real surprise when, a few minutes later, the tie ends up looped around Phil’s wrists and secured to the bed. Of course Phil could slip out of it any time he wanted – Clint didn’t even try to make a knot he couldn’t loosen. It’s not what this is about. This is about control and trust, not power – it’s how it’s always been between them, and Phil lets Clint take him over completely. The last shards of his self-awareness threaten to shatter as Clint maps every nook and crease of his body with his hands, his _tongue_ , as he nips and licks and growls around the messy scar on Phil’s chest, and _oh god this shouldn’t feel so good_ , but it does, it’s _perfect_. Phil says that aloud. He sees how Clint shivers at the words, how his eyes grow even darker with pleasure. So he keeps going. He whispers and moans and tells Clint how _wonderful_ this – _he_ – is. _Amazing, beautiful, good, oh so good, perfect, Clint, perfect_. When the time comes for Phil to reciprocate, Clint is pliable and shivering under his hands. And lips. And tongue. He moans and makes happy noises at the back of his throat, and whispers _sir_ and _Phil_ and _please_. Phil thinks that his chest might burst open, and maybe then his heart could take permanent residence in Clint’s ribcage. For some reason, this feels right rather than disturbing.

Afterwards, they lie in Phil’s bed, which is definitely not big enough for two grown men. Neither of them seems to mind. Clint’s legs are tangled around Phil’s, effectively keeping him pinned in place, and his head is pillowed on Phil’s chest, his forehead resting against the curve of the other man’s neck. He can hear Phil’s heartbeat, and Phil can feel Clint’s breath ghosting on his skin. They stay silent for a long while.

It’s Phil who speaks, in the end, his voice warm and sleepy-soft. “How’s Tasha?”

Clint hesitates for a second. “She’s – okay. Mostly. DC was – not easy on her. Especially the whole mess with Bucky coming back.”

“Bucky _Barnes_?” Phil’s body tenses up slightly. Clint runs soothing circles on his chest with his left hand ( _d_ _on’t worry about any of this_ _right now,_ _I’ve got you_ ), and Phil lets him, even though both of them know it doesn’t really work this way.

“Yes. Looks like he didn’t die in the war either.”

“I – didn’t know.”

“We’re trying to keep it under wraps right now – we’ve got enough to deal with already, all of us.”

“Yes. I understand. Good.” Phil seems to relax again. After a few more minutes of silence, he asks, “Are you angry?”

Phil’s position gives him a view over half of Clint’s face, so he sees the lazy smile that stretches the archer’s lips. “Did it look like I was angry?”

For a moment, Phil’s grin matches Clint’s. “Not really.”

“Then I wasn’t.”

“I – I’m still sorry.” _It’s awful, how this doesn’t even begin to cover it._ Phil must learn to apologize properly, and he’d better do it soon. “I should at least have tried to get the signal to you sooner. But it took me – a while to get back to health, even after – after TAHITI.”

Again, Phil can only see one half of Clint’s puzzled frown. “Tahiti? I thought that project had been closed down before New York.”

Clint may not be able to see Phil’s face from where his head is pillowed, but he can definitely feel the other man’s body go still and rigid at his last words. The archer’s expression turns to concern in a heartbeat, and he half-rises, propping himself up on his forearms to look at Phil. The agent is staring into space, his lips suddenly thin, eyes vacant.

“What do you know about Project TAHITI, _Clint_?” Phil’s voice slices through him. It sounds distant – _alien_. He still isn’t looking at Clint.

“Well, what am I supposed to – no. No, wait.” Phil’s expression turns so pained at Clint’s start that the archer has to make an effort to stop himself from cupping his face in his hands and kissing the corners of his mouth until he’s forced to smile. Instead, he moves firmly into Phil’s line of sight, draping himself over his chest, trying not to restrict his movements beyond the inevitable. “I knew there was a project with that name. I knew that you were responsible for it. And I heard you telling Hill it had been closed down when you moved the Tesseract to the Pegasus facility.”

“Nothing else?” Phil’s eyes are still unfocused. Clint is scared. _Correction: he’s terrified._

“No. I don’t think I was ever supposed to know any of the things I just told you, either. I just – you were –” Clint stammers and stops. This time, Phil glances at him, even though his expression stays closed off.

“I was?”

Clint sighs. “You were seeing that cellist. Ok, you weren’t, really, but I didn’t know that at the time. You were always away, and then I heard you’d met someone, and – you’d told everyone about her, but me. I wanted to – I just wanted to know what you were up to. I’m sorry. I didn’t find out that much, anyway.”

Phil stays silent for a while. Clint waits until he feels the tight tendrils of anxiety threatening to close around his throat, then he asks, “Are _you_ angry, now?”

Phil lets out a long, noisy breath. “No. No, I’m – I suppose I’m grateful.” Clint feels the tension bleed out of the other man’s body beneath him, and starts to relax in kind. He rolls a bit onto his right side and tentatively resumes his cuddling position against the curve of Phil’s neck. Phil nods and strokes his head slowly, keeping his touch light. The rhythmic movement is soothing. Both of them need it.

Phil’s next words are a deep rumble in his chest, under Clint’s ear. “There’s – there are some things I need to tell you about Project TAHITI.”

He doesn’t give him anything more than the facts. It’s enough for Clint to wrap himself so tightly around him that Phil has trouble breathing. He peppers Clint’s hair with soft kisses until they both fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter is going to be up on Saturday or Sunday, depending on when I get some time to re-read it in peace.


	21. Finale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written with the after-credit scene for "Beginning of the End" in mind. So, yeah, not exactly warm and fuzzy feelings all over.

Phil is perched on the edge of his desk on the Bus when someone knocks on his office door. Fury’s jet took off half an hour before, and since Skye has already come to see him ( _of course_ ), and May was there during his talk with the Director ( _former Director_ ), that leaves Triplett, or Clint. Honestly, it’s not hard to guess which one is more likely to be on the other side of the door.

“Come on in.” Phil thinks briefly about hopping down and resuming his official position behind the desk. In the end, he stays where he is.

Clint hovers in the doorway for a moment, then steps into the office. His relaxed posture is betrayed by the way he visibly can’t decide where to stand in the unfamiliar space. He was in there for a few minutes right before Phil’s meeting with Fury, but it’s still different from the one he’s used to. There’s no couch on which he can sprawl, for a start. Phil makes a small beckoning motion at him.

“So, a little bird told me that I’m supposed to call you DC now. Am I?”

Phil rolls his eyes. _Skye._ _Of course._ He’ll never admit to how much he likes the kid. Not out loud, at least. “Oh, no. No, you really aren’t.” Clint makes what can be best described as _puppy-dog eyes_ at him, which is completely unfair, and also not going to work. _At all._ _Definitely._ _Nope._ “Please. I don’t need more than one insubordinate kid on my plane at a time.”

Clint’s grin turns into a soft smile. He’s still standing in the middle of the office, which makes for remarkably little progress from his former position by the door, considering how compact the space is. “You know what? I like Skye.”

“So do I. But I was just promising to myself a minute ago that I wouldn’t admit to that out loud, so we’re going to pretend that this conversation never happened. Understood?”

“Sir, yes sir.” Clint’s smile has taken a wicked edge to it. _Great._ Phil rolls his eyes again, but he can’t keep the fondness out of the gesture.

“Come here.” Phil crooks two fingers at Clint, again. This time, the archer steps forward until he’s too far into Phil’s personal space to even try to pretend that they’re still nothing more than agent and asset. It’s still not what Phil was thinking about. “Here.” He pats the free space at his side. Clint smiles again as he hops on the desk, and it’s warm, and soft, and _nice_ , and once more Phil can’t help the answering crinkling of his eyes. Not that he really wants to.

“You didn’t answer my question, _DC_.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. You are _not_ supposed to call me DC. Honestly, it sounds too much like a federal district and too little like an official nickname.” _Does he have an official nickname, now? He guesses he does._ “Although the – the _intended meaning_ is right, I suppose.” He may have sighed a bit over the last phrase. _So what._ Clint nudges at him lightly with his shoulder.

“It looks like congratulations are in order. By the way, Natasha says hi.”

Phil turns a fraction towards Clint at that, because _how_ , and he hopes that Clint has used a secure line, _of course he’s used a secure line, he can’t be that careless, even though now they don’t have a Clairvoyant to worry about anymore, but they still don’t know what else is out there, apart from Hydra, of course, and everyone else that’s still out to get SHIELD, and maybe he isn’t exactly over the post-mission anxiety yet, is he._

“Hey. Stark phone technology. I used the most secure line anyone could get their hands on.” Phil nods. Irrational as his fears might have been, he’s still relieved.

“Good. So. Tasha. How is she?”

“She’s all right. She also said to warn you, and I take no responsibility for this quote, mind you, that you’re at high risk of having your teeth punched in as soon as she gets to meet you.”

Phil’s mouth stretches out into a smile again – he’s pretty sure that he’s been smiling more in the last ten minutes than he did in the previous ten days. Then again, considering what happened in the last ten days, that’s far from surprising. “Did you tell her that she might not want to face the consequences of punching the newly appointed Director of SHIELD?”

Clint looks almost bashful for a moment, and _is that a blush? Yes. Yes it is._ “Not exactly. I _m_ _ay_ just have told her that she might not want to face the consequences of punching my boyfriend, though.”

Phil’s cheeks are starting to hurt from smiling. “And here I thought that I was going to be the sappy one in this relationship.” It’s a terrible line, to be honest, but the way Clint’s face relaxes at the word _relationship_ is absolutely worth it. It’s nice to pretend that things are fine for a while, that everything’s normal, that they aren’t going to drop Clint off so he can get back to New York in a few hours at best, and Phil doesn’t have a secret organization to rebuild.

Clint doesn’t look him in the eye as he goes on. “Also, Stark says that you’re welcome to join us at the Tower any time you want.” Phil makes a face at that, and Clint laughs softly, which means that he’s at least looking at him now. _Progress. Good._ “Actually, he asked me to tell you that it was Cap who invited you, because he was sure that you’d refuse if it came from him.”

Phil rolls his eyes again. “Well, thanks for not taking part in that ruse.”

“Not really a problem.” Phil steals a glance at Clint. The archer’s gone back to staring into the space in front of them. His hand is resting close to Phil’s on the desk, so the agent moves to slide his fingers between and under Clint’s, turning the palm of his own hand up. He tightens his hold minutely as he answers the not-really-unspoken question.

“You know I would come with you if I could.”

Clint sighs. “Yes. I know. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Don’t say that. It makes me happy that you did. And I’ll – I promise I’ll try to visit as soon as I can.” He hopes that Clint understands that he means it. Of course, Clint does.

“I had Stark set up a secure line through Jarvis for you. Whatever happens, if you need anything, just – call. Please.”

“I will. You, too.” _Take care_ is left unspoken, but again, Phil is sure that Clint got it anyway.

It’s the archer’s turn to squeeze down on Phil’s hand. He lets his head fall onto his lover’s shoulder. Phil, in turn, tilts his head until his cheek is resting lightly on Clint’s hair. They stay like that for a while, not speaking.

“How did your talk with Fury go?”

Phil won’t admit it, but he’s thankful that Clint can’t see his face as he answers. He’s also grateful for the archer’s warmth against his side, for the way their fingers are still woven together. “I don’t know. I – suppose it went well.”

“Did he – did he explain what they did? _TAHITI?_ ”

“Yes. At least, I think he did. He – he gave _reasons_.”

“Good ones?”

“Reasons.” Clint’s thumb strokes Phil’s hand, slowly, patiently. Phil shivers. He still feels far too exposed. The meeting has drained what little emotional energies he had left, and right now he really doesn’t want to face the implications of what has been said. That, of course, doesn’t mean that he’s going to get what he wants. “I – I knew he was supposed to have some. I just – I was mistaken about what they’d be.”

“What did he say?” _If you want to tell me_ is left unspoken, but it hangs clearly between them.

Phil sighs again. He _wants_ to tell Clint. He’d also very much like to bask in the moment and pretend that they don’t have a life as super-spies and/or leaders of a (former) top-secret organization to live. He presses down a bit more with his cheek on Clint’s head. Clint burrows closer in response. He sneaks his left arm over Phil’s lap, resting his free hand on his side.

“He said that he needed someone he could trust.” Which is far from the entirety of what Fury said, but Phil can’t bring himself to tell Clint about the rest. He’s still not sure that he’ll ever want to think about it again. _He was saved because he was – what? A good person? Pure, that's what Fury said. Pure. Is he?_

“It’s – not that strange of a reason, for Fury.” Clint is basically mumbling his answers into Phil’s neck, and his breath tickles a bit.

“I – suppose not.” _Neither is the other one, he guesses._ “It’s just –” Phil draws a deep breath. He’s going to do this. This is Clint he’s talking to, and he’s going to do this. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it.”

“It isn’t enough for TAHITI.”

“No. No, it isn’t.” The words come out harsher than he’d intended. He’s starting to tremble. He can’t stop, can’t get it under control, and he hates it. _Please, not now._

Clint disentangles himself just enough that he’s able to raise his head and look at him. His left hand comes up to cup his cheek, or so Phil guesses – then he changes his mind at the last minute and rests his hand on Phil’s shoulder instead.

“You know, I – I didn’t really understand, before.”

“You didn’t understand what?”

“That – our _thing_ with the blue objects. Why you needed it, I mean.” Clint nods. He’s being so patient, and Phil is grateful, but he can’t help feeling ashamed of his weakness, of the way he needs to approach the topic from the side or he’s sure that he will break down completely. _Again_. “Then I found out about TAHITI. I mean – Fury knew. Hill knew. Fuck, _May_ knew, she saw me every day, and she didn’t tell me. No one did. One day, I thought I could trust them, and then I found out they’d been keeping _this_ from me. May – May _comforted_ me when I was – when I was feeling _off_ , after I came back. She told me that I was not supposed to be fine. That it was _ok_. And she _knew_ about TAHITI and she didn’t even have to _lie_ to me – because I never asked. I was just so _sure_ that she’d have told me if she had known. I _trusted_ her. I – I flipped out a bit, when I found out she’d known all along.” Phil makes to clench his fists, then he remembers that he still has Clint’s right hand in his left. “I’m sorry.” He lowers his eyes. “I’m losing it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Clint’s voice has a raw edge to it. He tilts Phil’s face back towards him with a touch of his fingers, and places a light kiss on the side of his mouth. “You have every right to be upset.”

And that, _those words_ , are exactly what Phil has been dreading to hear since the moment he spoke with Fury. Or for a long time before that, if he’s sincere. He sits up straight, pulling his hands away from Clint’s and into his lap. “No. No, I don’t. I don’t get a get-out-of-jail-free card just because I’m fucking _upset_. I’m the Director of SHIELD, now. I have a secret organization to rebuild, and absolutely no time to lose in self-pity.”

Clint straightens up as well, and all of a sudden his face twists with anger. “ _Of course_ , Phil, of course. _Look at me, I’m the Director of SHIELD and I have responsibilities_ , and I have _no time_ to look after myself or even acknowledge that there’s something wrong because _duty_. Now tell me, Phil, how am I supposed to leave when I know that you’re acting like this?”

“Oh, is this what you’re trying to do, now? _Protect me?_ Well, why don’t you join the line, _Agent Barton_ – I’m sure there’s a few people in here who’ll be glad for your _help_.” He spits the words out like they’re the most hateful thing he’s ever spoken, but he can’t keep his voice from cracking. _He can’t do this now._ He’s exhausted and he feels sorry for himself, and, honestly, scared, and he can’t be fighting with Clint now, not when the archer is about to leave and he doesn’t know when they’ll get to see each other again. He stands up and starts to turn away from Clint. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” Clint stands up in turn. “Of course I’m trying to protect you, Phil. To _look after you_.” He lowers his voice, but his hands are on Phil’s shoulders, turning him back so that they’re facing each other again. “I know that you don’t need me to do that, I do, and if you tell me to go away I’ll – I’ll respect it. I’ll try. But I’m still worried about you and I just – I don’t want you to get hurt. So _talk to me_ , Phil. Please.”

Phil smiles a watery smile at him. “You’re stealing my lines now.”

Clint’s smiling in turn. “I won’t regret it if it works.”

“I’m sorry. Really.” Phil leans into the hug. He isn’t crying this time, which he guesses is an improvement, but he’s so fucking close, and _he hates it_. “I – I don’t want to push you away. It’s just –” He cuts himself off. _This will do no good._

“It’s just _what_ , Phil.” Clint pushes him away a little, enough that he can look at him. Phil makes a move to try and hide his face back into Clint’s chest, then he stops himself. _Really, he’s being ridiculous._

He has to force himself to breathe in a couple of times before he can say the words. “I begged the doctors to let me die.” Clint’s face does something unspeakable at that, rage and hurt and grief battling for supremacy over his features. “I – don’t know why I did, actually. Can’t remember the details. I’d guess that I was just in a lot of pain, and I wanted it to stop. Or maybe I remembered what I’d seen of the TAHITI procedure. The aftermath.” Clint nods. Phil told him about the side effects, that night at the motel. The pained expression is still on his face, and he’s obviously struggling to keep quiet and let Phil finish. “I – no amount of explaining from Fury was ever going to make up for that.” Clint’s expression turns murderous, and, well, for what it’s worth, Phil can’t help but share the sentiment. “It’s still not the – the whole problem.” He gives up. He can’t say it. Not even to Clint.

“What is it, then?”

“I – it’s –” Phil has to gasp for air, again. He realizes how close he is to hyperventilating, and tries to get his breathing back in check. “I’m scared. I’ve seen the effects of the TAHITI procedure. Of GH-325. You’ve seen them as well – on Garrett. We gave it to Skye, too.” His voice is breaking again. “I don’t know what we’re going to face.” _I don’t know if I’m going to lose my mind._  


Clint’s hand has come up and is stroking his hair. “And the fact that Fury just left you with the burden of rebuilding SHIELD from scratch isn’t helping.”

“I guess not. But I suppose that someone had to do it, and he needed _someone he could trust_ , of course.” He manages a smile, bitter and self-deprecating, this time. “I’m just not sure that I’m the right person to trust at the moment, that’s it.”

It’s Clint who pulls him into a hug, now. Phil can feel the words rumbling in his chest, right next to his heartbeat. “I trust you.” _He’s never said this before. How could he not have said this before?_ “The team trusts you. Skye does, and May does, and you should really give them a chance to look after you, you know. Nat trusts you as well – enough that she didn’t come looking for you when you sent the blue pen to me. Neither did I, and believe me, it took some effort. _Steve_ trusts you, although the man would probably trust a burglar if he found him in his apartment, and then he’d offer him hot chocolate and make him apologize and bring him back onto the path of virtue or something.”

Phil chuckles, the sound muffled against Clint’s chest. “Hey, is it _Steve_ now?”

“Of course. It’s also Thor, of course, because Odinson would just be weird, and Bruce – and Tony, although I didn’t say _that_ before because I was afraid that it would give you a heart attack.”

Phil looks up at him, his expression one of mock betrayal. He’s still more than a little shaken, but he looks like he’s at least starting to regain his footing. “I think you made the right choice.” Then he smiles, and straightens up a bit, although he doesn’t let go of Clint. “I’m glad that you’re going back to them. They’re good people.”

“I’ll tell Tony you said that.” Clint rests their foreheads together just as Phil grimaces. Up close, the effect is even more amusing.

“ _Oh god please no._ I’ll never live it down, will I?”

“Probably not.”

“I guess I deserved it for implying that Stark is a good person. Try to take care of them, will you?”

“Nat does a much better job of it than I’ll ever manage. You make sure to take care of your team.”

“You mean my secret organization.” Phil smirks, and Clint leans forward to kiss the smirk off his face. He’s rather successful in this endeavor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Uhm. *clears throat, looks around, fidgets in seat* I'll try to cut the closing speech short, ok?
> 
> Writing this was great, posting it was way greater than I'd expected. This is the end of this fic, but I'm planning to add one or two short-ish companion pieces (one from Natasha's POV, parts of which I have more or less scripted, and maybe one about the purple pen that made an appearance in Chapter 11). I also have a number of other projects in different draft stages, a couple of which I hope to get finished and posted in the near future, but I can't promise anything about when. What I know (and I didn't know it before I worked up the courage to post this fic, so it's entirely relevant, I'm not rambling, shut up) is that I'll keep writing as soon as I get the time.  
> (Edit: per one reader's request, I've turned this into a series, so that anyone interested in reading the companion pieces can subscribe. I'll probably end up changing the title, because I had to come up with it in about 5 seconds, and I hate it.)
> 
> Thanks to all of you for sticking with me until now (and no, I'm not referring to this awfully verbose endnote), and, of course, to everyone who showed me their support with their comments.
> 
> And now, excuse me, but I'm off to finally catch up on Season 2.
> 
> (self-promotion time: I have [a tumblr](http://stepantrofimovic.tumblr.com/). Come say hi. There will be updates about this series, which is still in progress, even though I'm an awfully slow writer.)


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